


You Were the Only One (YCBTOO Part 2)

by SupremeLeaderRen13



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, Multi, Pregnancy, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-10-22
Packaged: 2019-02-27 11:17:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 33,555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247109
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SupremeLeaderRen13/pseuds/SupremeLeaderRen13
Summary: This is the sequel to my reylo fic, You Could Be the Only One (http://archiveofourown.org/works/12466220/chapters/28371240). After leaving Kylo Ren and the resistance at the Battle of Crait, Rey delves deeper into the Dark Side while guarding a precious secret. Meanwhile, Ben Solo struggles with the aftermath of his loss, shielded by a resistance that hates him.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As promised, here is the sequel to You Could Be the Only One. I have finally stopped crying over The Last Jedi long enough to scribble in my notebook. I really, really recommend reading YCBTOO before starting this. I will be updating as it gets done. Enjoy, and may the Force be with you, always.  
> Save Ben Solo 2019.

Mustafar had been abandoned for nearly thirty-five years. The volcanic, volatile planet was inhospitable to most temperate life forms, and any remaining droids that had called the rock home had long since powered down. Rey stepped over the rusted carcass of one of the unlucky units as she took in her surroundings. Narrow catwalks separated the metal landing platform onto which she had just been deposited, some of them rusted or completely destroyed. The young, dark haired officer to her right mopped his brow.  
“We’ll wait here for you, Lady. Send us a comm when you are ready for pick up.”  
“Thank you, Mitaka.” She shut her eyes and inhaled, trying to see past the sulfuric odor of the planet. Yes, there was something there, humming beneath her feet. “I may be quite some time.”  
“Just as well. I’m here for you.” Rey offered the man a rare smile, eyes still closed. She had no love for most of the First Order personnel, but she did like Captain Mitaka. There was no doubting his military prowess, of course, but he had a kind nature that made him seem out of place here. She had felt his relief when they’d first met, the absolute joy that she was replacing—  
No. Don’t think the name. Snoke would know.  
She shrugged off her cape and slung it over her arm. No sense in tempting fate—she did not intend to die by fire after all else she had withstood. A small guyser exploded beneath the platform as she let her eyes flutter shut again. Yes, there is was. She extended her hand over the side of the rusted railing.  
A durasteel platform rose out of the abyss to meet her, coming to a rest at the exact height of the landing dock. Screwing up her eyes, she stepped onto the flimsy-looking circular transport. It immediately began to move, holding her in rigid stillness. Although she’d never been a stranger to the heat, this was an all-new kind of climate. Sweat trickled down her neck.  
“Wow.” She exhaled sharply as the platform carried her into the shadow of a gargantuan structure, built of stone seemingly as ancient as the planet itself. The disc rose slowly, eventually depositing her in a cavernous entry way.  
Her boots made soft echoes as she made her way through the maze of halls, fingers trailing over doors and curtains. Thick clouds of dust rained down on her as her fingers found purchase on a door and pushed it open.  
Yes, this was it. She knew it immediately by the way the Force swelled around her, deep and dark. It threatened to pull her under with the sheer headiness of it, but she fought against it, letting instinct guide her to a dais at the far side of the room. The surface of the dais seemed ancient, inlaid with a strange symbol—a circle rested in the midst of a four-pointed starburst. She knelt carefully and placed her palms on top of it.  
Pain, fear, screaming—she let it wash over her, reaching through the Force.  
“I hate you!” The voice of Anakin Skywalker echoed through the chamber, built over the site of his first, nearly fatal, defeat. The child in her womb jumped at the sound of its grandfather’s voice.  
“Shh.” She laid a hand on her slightly rounded abdomen before reaching out again. She paused for a moment to reflect on the remarkable cruelty of Sith masters. Darth Sidious had forced his apprentice to spend many days here, in this castle-like prison at the site of his defeat. How degrading—how frustrating.  
In her mind’s eye, she could see Snoke pressing his fingers together thoughtfully, considering this when she’d first brought it up weeks ago. He’d answered her slowly.   
“Yes, cruel, but the rage and shame bred here gave new fuel to the Empire that the two shared. Don’t ever think that we masters did not endure our own form of suffering.” He had grinned, making his mutilated face more twisted than ever. “It is the path to harnessing the power of the Dark Side.”  
She shook her head, firmly leaving the memory somewhere else. There was work to be done. Still leaning over the symbol, she began to recite words as old as the galaxies.  
“…through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.” Her lips parted as the symbol gave a shudder and began to rise, much like the transport disc had.  
The space underneath the dais was shallow, only a meter deep at most. She felt gingerly around the bottom until her fingers brushed what she was looking for.  
*****  
“Was everything successful for you?” Mitaka stood with his arms clasped behind his back as their ship made the jump to hyperspace. Rey brushed a strand of sticky hair out of her face before palming her pockets.  
“Yes, I think so.” She sighed, tired. No doubt Snoke would want to see her as soon as she boarded the Supremacy. Mitaka looked askance at her, the question already on his lips.  
She heard it in his head. “Too forward, Captain,” she murmured, not unkindly. He blinked and nodded, looking away.  
General Hux met her in the docking bay. She scowled. Some homecoming this was turning out to be. Hux returned her frown, although his most likely stemmed from her disheveled appearance.  
“Supreme Leader has asked me to inform you that he cannot meet with you today. He’ll be in touch tomorrow.” He started walking and Rey followed, alight with relief.   
“I’ll take to my quarters, then. It was a bit of an involved trip.” She almost said “I’m tired” but had already learned that it was a mistake to show weakness to a man like Hux. He had a talent for exploiting any scrap of doubt to his advantage. It seemed he had already guessed what she was going to say, and his eyes narrowed, green and shrewd.  
“You kept the appointment I had scheduled for you?”  
Something darkened within her. “I did,” she answered tightly. “Everything is fine. Your concern is inappropriate and unwarranted.”  
“Fine, but early, yes? We could undo this, make you a stronger asset—“ His words were abruptly cut off as her hand ghosted over his throat with the Force.  
“This has made me stronger, General. You would do well to remember it.”  
“Stronger,” he spat derisively. “Do you really think the…father will not come looking for it?” Hux flushed, seemingly surprised at his own daring.  
“Not if he does not know. Goodnight, General.” Rey entered her quarters and slid the door shut, leaving an affronted Hux in her wake.  
******  
Later, after a long stay in the refresher, Rey sank into her narrow bed, turning uncomfortably in the sheets. Eventually her breaths came slow and more evenly. This was the worst part of her night, because as soon her she dropped her guard—  
'Rey.' Kylo’s voice, a haunting echo, whispered in her ear. She frowned and pulled the blankets up to her shoulders. He had not missed one night of doing this since she’d left him, never let off for a second.  
'Rey. Please say something.' There was a pause, then a trembling waver. 'I need to know if you’re alright.'  
“You would know if I weren’t.” She tried to keep her answers short and clipped. Anything to hide the longing that his voice brought on. The baby nudged her.  
“Please come home to me.” Taking her answer as an invitation, Kylo Ren appeared in her bed, nearly nose to nose with her on the pillow. His big dark eyes surveyed her hungrily while his full lower lip trembled. He wasn’t really here, but he was so warm. Force help her, she was trying so hard right now. She leaned her forehead against his chest.  
The bond between them thrummed, dulled slightly by the mental shield she held in place. Kylo—Ben groaned and twisted his hands through her hair. She breathed in the scent of him, something both spicy and earthy. It reminded her of Ahch-To, their trip on the Finalizer, that last night on Crait—all of it too much. He smelled like home, but he wasn’t home. Not anymore.  
“I can feel how badly you want to be with me,” he whispered. “Don’t fight it.” She was breathing slowly and deeply before she realized what was happening. A touch of Force suggestion tinged his words. “Come to me, Rey.”  
“Ugh.” She smashed both of her hands into his chest, pushing him away from her. “It’s just the bond telling you that. I’m not coming back, Ben.” She expected him to retreat as he usually did, horrified and in pain. Instead, white hot anger—the Dark side—slithered over the bond.  
“If you won’t come to me, I will come to you. You don’t want that.”  
She swallowed hard. “Don’t try to manipulate me, Ben. If you walk into your own death, I won’t help you.”  
“What if he asks you to kill me again?” Rey pressed her face into the pillow briefly, trying to hide her expression. When she looked up, Kylo was fading. “That’s what I thought.” The ghost of his lips on her hair, then nothing.


	2. Restlessness on Canto Bight

Ben Solo did not sleep.  
He tossed and turned fiercely, jerking the covers on and off with every change of mood. Now that they no longer made him room with his uncle, this wasn’t a problem for anyone but him. Usually he would give up after two or three hours of rolling and stumble to the med bay, where his mother was still lying in a bacta tank coma.  
This was where he found himself tonight, moving like a shadow through the carpeted hallways of dearly departed Admiral Holdo’s home on Canto Bight. He still wasn’t used to the freedom here—well, relative freedom. The metal band around his ankle chafed as she pushed open the medbay doors. He’d considered taking it off multiple times, but it was the only concession he’d had to make for everyone to leave him the hell alone. As long as the band stayed on, he went where he pleased and no one bothered him.  
He stopped short. Someone was already sitting by his mother’s bed, leaning their head on the exact same place Ben usually rested his. He ducked his head and rolled his lips, suddenly self-conscious of everything from his scared face to the loose white clothes covering his mutilated skin. He’d just taken a silent step backwards when the figure spoke.  
“I can leave, if it bothers you.”  
Ben ground his teeth. Kriffing Dameron. He almost made to leave again, but the idea of going back to bed and sharing Rey’s dreams was even less appealing to hanging out with the resistance’s golden son.  
“You don’t bother me.” He chewed his cheek before sinking into the chair beside Poe. General Leia Organa looked tinier than ever swathed in white and deathly still in her glass chamber. Ben pressed his hand against hers.  
“Can’t you do some Force crap to help her?” Dameron turned his dark brows down. “Something useful?”  
“The Force doesn’t work like that,” Ben spat. He took a deep breath and tried again, thinking of Rey’s expression. “I could do very little. Most of the healing arts are long lost.”  
“That figures.” Poe seemed to wilt. “I loved her too, you know.”  
“You had your own mother.” He eyed the ring that hung from a chain around Poe’s neck. The captain brought his hand to it.  
“I always forget how much you know.”  
“I remember more than I’d care to, and hear even more than that.” The two men sat in silence for a minute. The stupid BB unit dozed in the corner, its lights signaling low power. He considered aiming a moody kick at it, but that might start a fight and get him stuck in a jail cell for a few weeks, where he’d have nothing to distract himself from her.  
“Do you remember me?”  
“Of course. You shadowed my mother constantly. You liked to fly and hero worshipped Han Solo.”  
Poe laughed and rolled his eyes in disbelief. “Anyone watching from another planet could have said as much. Come on, Ben. We were friends!”  
Ben did remember, vaguely. It was like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, but he did remember. “Yes. You were older.”  
“Yeah. Three years.”  
“Your birthday is on the summer solstice.” He blinked, shocked at how clearly he remembered that.   
“You do remember.” The two fell into another silence. Ben ruffled his hair and jerked his chin towards Poe’s neck.  
“Have you never found someone to give that to? That’s all you used to whine about.”  
Poe huffed and chuckled, twirling his mother’s ring between his fingers. “No. Maybe.” Ben reached out in the Force, gently looking into the man’s mind. He could see a figure, but not clearly. So he had someone in mind, but didn’t realize it yet. Interesting. Poe’s next question pulled him out of his reverie.   
“Do you miss her?”  
If it was possible to feel more cleaved in two than he already was, he did now. That yawning hole opened up in his chest. Breathing while thinking about her physically hurt.  
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”  
“Ben. I heard what she did for you out there on Crait. Your mother even said—“  
“Stop. You don’t know anything about me. You knew Ben Solo. I’m not Ben Solo.” He pushed the chair back and hunched over, fighting against the dark swelling within him. “And if you’d been doing your job on Crait, my mother could tell us both what she said.”  
Poe watched him for a moment, an odd expression creasing his face. He stood suddenly and made to leave.   
“This, this thing that you’re feeling? No one deserves it more than you, Kylo Ren.”  
The lights flickered as Ben tried to master himself, fighting against the ridiculous pain that now conquered him, devoid of an outlet.  
'Rey,' he pleaded. 'Rey, please.'  
The bond opened and he saw her face briefly.  
'I miss you too.' A pause. 'I’m not coming back.'


	3. An Unexpected Guest

“The Skywalker boy raises weakness in you.” The Force ghost of Sheev Palpatine stood above Rey, and odd and undulating cloud of black surrounding it. She glared up at him from her perch over the refresher sink.  
“All due respect, grandfather, but I don’t think he is my problem right now.” She heaved and spat in the sink again. Emperor Palpatine grabbed her chin and forced her eyes to the mirror.  
“He is exactly your problem, and the cause of all this.” He gestured disgustedly at the basin. “I can see your heart, and you can’t think for a second that Snoke—“  
She slammed her hands down on the sink. “I know!” The water rushed as she turned it on. “I don’t love him.”  
Her grandfather laughed. “You’re angry with him, yes, but don’t delude yourself into thinking you’ve overcome that.”  
Her temper was rising. “Then help me!” Cracks ran up the mirror, cobwebbing her sallow face.  
“Help you? Child, my heir, I’m trying. Your time with Luke Skywalker and Ren has made you frightened of your own power. They very nearly ruined you.”  
She took a deep breath. “I know.”  
The ghost placed his hands on her shoulders. “I can reteach you. But you must trust in Snoke. And you can’t keep missing Ben Solo. That boy died long ago.” He brushed a tear off her cheek. “Can you do that?”  
“Yes.” Someone buzzed her comm, and her grandfather vanished. She wiped her mouth and tapped to answer.  
“This is Rey.” Hux would gripe at her informality, but there was no way she was going to use her ridiculous title. To her delight, it wasn’t Hux at all.  
“Mitaka, Lady—Rey.”  
“Come in.” She punched the access button and left the refresher. Mitaka stood nervously by the door, clutching two pieces of toast in a napkin. She wondered if nervous was his natural state or a side effect of working with these people all day. Option two, most likely.  
“I thought it might help your stomach.” The captain looked embarrassed as he held out the bread. She took it and smiled.   
“Thank you.”  
“Lady—“  
“Rey,” she chided gently. He sighed in exasperation, looking much closer to his actual age than usual. “We’ve been called to a meeting.”  
“No offense meant, Captain Mitaka, but why did they send you to collect me?”  
He smirked. “The Supreme Leader thought that I was preferable to General Hux.”  
“No question of that.” She cocked an eyebrow as they entered the elevator together. “But why an escort, period?” She said this very quickly through a mouthful of toast and was impressed that Mitaka understood her.  
“They thought you might need a friend today.” Her eyebrows contracted, but she had no time to ask before they were stepping off the elevator and into Snoke’s throne room. She swallowed the last bit of toast before striding forward to kneel before him.   
“Young Rey. Let me extend my sincere commendations for your success on Mustafar.”  
“Thank you, Supreme Leader.” Snoke tilted his head, frowning. Her refusal to call him master irked him. He let it pass.  
“I understand that, given what you retrieved there, you are now in need of a code breaker.”  
She looked up, excited. “I am.”  
“Wonderful. Then you will need…oh, thank you, General Hux.” Several stormtroopers entered the room, towing a disheveled, dark eyed man who was wearing clothes that looked much too nice for him. He sank to his knees in front of Snoke, who gestured at Rey to rise. She did, taking her place beside the Supreme Leader with some trepidation. The prisoner looked up at her.  
“H-h-hi, s-s-sweetheart. Fancy meeting you here.” He managed to wink, despite a rapidly swelling black eye.  
“You!” She nearly howled. The last time she had crossed paths with DJ, he’d shot her twice in an effort to draw out—  
'Don’t think the name,' the Supreme Leader warned her in her own head. 'We will talk about what you’ve been doing later.' Menace dripped from the last word. He spoke aloud to the rest.  
“Peace, my young apprentice. DJ is to serve you exclusively on this project, as a way of making amends to me. Afterwards, the decision of his fate is yours.” DJ winked again and she seethed, the Force coming to her aid. She twisted her wrist and pulled him to his feet, dragging him several meters and into her waiting hand.  
“Perfect.”


	4. Finn's Resistance

Finn was not accustomed to having unlimited leisure time. Not for the first time, he reflected that in any other circumstance this would have been a novelty bordering on glee, but that was long gone. He felt like he’d been staring at the walls of Holdo’s home for years, not weeks. Occasionally he’d wander out of his room to see if anything was happening, if General Organa had awakened, if they were going to fight. Nothing. It was like the air had been let out of the resistance. The hope.  
They might have been able to pull it together if anyone here wanted to be a leader. For a while, Finn had really thought Poe would step up, smile at everyone, and tell them it was going to be okay. Instead, he’d withdrawn into himself, spending increasing amounts of time in his room with a bottle, away from Finn. That hurt more than he liked to think about. No one was outwardly mean, but people were still a little suspicious of him here. Rose was still recovering, so Finn spent most of his time alone. Most of it. The rest he committed to bothering a person of note, hoping to stir some fire in somebody.  
He wandered down the hallway, thinking vaguely of trying Skywalker again. The old Jedi master’s uselessness could only be matched by that of his nephew. Finn eyed the door to his left warily. Ren never left his rooms, unless it was to slither in the middle of the night to see his mother. The tracker told them that much. He wasn’t exactly sure when the guy ever ate, but he hadn’t died yet, so he figured Skywalker was passing him something. Typical. Still, he lingered by the door. No one was going to take orders from the Jedi Killer, but maybe he could give them something, anything on the First Order. Maybe he knew something about Rey.  
There it was, the familiar swooping sensation in his hollow stomach. He just couldn’t believe that Rey, his fierce friend who had pleaded with him on Takodona to help the resistance, had left them. Just like that. Skywalker said her heart had been turned, that the dark side had offered her something she needed, but Finn didn’t believe that. Ren had done something to her, he was sure of it. He’d let him go on Crait because he really, really thought that he’d bring her back. Instead, he’d lost her. He wanted to cry with the unfairness of it all.  
He nearly screamed when the door opened to reveal Kylo Ren, glaring out at him. It might have been easier to recover his face if Ren hadn’t looked so shockingly bad—there were deep hollows in his cheeks that made Finn second-guess his assumption Skywalker was feeding him, and the skin around his eyes was so purple as to be black. Maybe Ren sensed these thoughts, because he ducked his head, letting his grown out hair swing forward to cover most of his face.  
“Can I help you?” The deep voice was still the same, but something had left it. It no longer held any bite.  
“No, you can’t.” Finn’s anger returned suddenly. How dare this monster sulk in his room like his world had imploded, after all he’d done? “You can’t do anything for us.” He turned around, too pissed now to even goad Skywalker.  
“Maybe you can do something for me.”  
Finn stopped and turned. “I will never do anything for you again.”  
“Please?” Ren’s lips formed the word like it was foreign, one of those indecipherable sounds from an alien language he didn’t quite have the parts for. Finn glanced back at Ren, who was resting against the doorframe like it was barely holding him up.  
“What? And I’m not saying yes,” he amended quickly.  
“When she came here…” He trailed off, but there was no mistaking who he was talking about. “When she came here, I sent her in an Order ship, and they intercepted her. I would assume they didn’t take it with them.” He took Finn’s silence for confirmation. “I’d like to see it.”  
“No chance, Ren. Do you think I’m stupid? I mean, if you want to kill yourself, there’s easier ways to do it than flying a ship containing our location straight back to Snoke.” He stopped himself, picturing Rose’s expression if she could hear him. “I didn’t mean that,” he mumbled.  
Ren didn’t seem to hear him. “Did you sell it? I just need to know who cleaned it out.”  
“I don’t know, Ren. I could look it up…what’s so important? Did you have weapons on there? Because you’re definitely not getting those back.”  
“It was a bird.”   
This guy had to be joking. Finn glanced around for hidden cameras. “A bird?”  
Kylo pressed the heel of his hand to his eyebrow, pushing back towards his temple. “Some strange alien species she picked up, I don’t know. From Skywalker’s island.”  
“If I look into this, will you try to get Skywalker to come out?”  
Ren rolled his shoulders forward. “You’ll have better luck than I will.” He took in Finn’s mutinous expression. “I’ll try.”  
Finn sighed. “Okay, fine. No promises.” He wandered back towards the control rooms.  
***************************************************************************************************************************************  
Paige Tico was lying underneath an ancient x-wing fighter, toying with something below the right wing. She rolled out and smiled at Finn as he came in, her long dark hair flipped into a messy bun.  
“Well, well, well, look who decided to join the land of the living!” She stood and brushed the dust off of her clothes. “Have you checked on Rose today?”  
His inside’s squirmed guiltily. “Not yet. I um…got hung up.” Paige smiled understandingly.  
“She’s getting grumpier by the day. Not exactly the best company.”  
“Um, Paige? When we got the Order ship that Rey abandoned here, did it have anything on it?”  
Tico immediately tossed her tool to the floor. “Why? Are there weapons? Explosives? Should I call for evacuation?”  
“No! No. There were no animals or anything?”  
“Um…not unless you count that thing?” She pointed across the hanger, where a small bird-like creature lay flat on its back, orange feet sticking up in the air. She read the look on Finn’s face and laughed. “It’s not dead, believe me, I know it looks it! Chet about wet himself when it rolled off the ship, you should have seen him.” Picking her way carefully around the ships, she scooped the little creature off the floor. “We were worried about feeding it at first, but there seems to be very little it won’t eat. I found it chewing the interior of my ship one day.”  
Finn watched the weird puffin continue to sleep in the girls arms. “That’d be it.”  
“Was it hers?”  
He nodded slowly. “Yeah, it was.”  
She passed him the bird gently. “Here, take it. Just make sure you’re willing to lose anything softer than metal.”   
He laughed. “Fortunately, I’m not really bound to any material possessions.”  
“Good thing, too. It’s like having a goat.” Her face took on a more serious air. “Have you seen Poe?”  
He bit his lip. “Haven’t made it that far yet.”  
“You’re off to a late start for your usual run!” Paige slapped the side of the x-wing. “Get going then, and give my love to my grumpy sister!”  
“Thanks, Paige!”   
She waved carelessly behind her, already preoccupied with the ship again.  
***********************************************************************************************************************  
He banged on the door, unwilling to be discovered cradling the weird thing like a baby outside Kylo Ren’s room. He’d wrapped it in a blanket, and it kept poking its round head out to blink at him with big, bulbous eyes. It was creepy, and he wanted to get rid of it. It made a weird clucking noise and opened its mouth to show him rows of little sharp teeth.  
“Ew! Stop it!” He pulled the blanket over the thing’s head and pounded on the door again. Finally, movement sounded from behind the door and Ren slid it open, looking at him blearily.  
“Kriff, have you thought about going to the medbay before you give whatever that is to everyone else?” Kylo looked sicker than ever, his skin stretched tight over the bones of his face.  
“I’m not sick. Did you--?” The creepy bird pushed its head out of the blanket and positively screamed when it looked at Ren. Finn barely had time to think yeah, me too bird before it pushed itself out of his arms and flew directly at the man like he was its mother and not a mass murderer who looked to be on the verge of death. It was still small enough to sit in Ren’s outstretched hands, and it was chirping and clucking madly in his hands, like it was trying to talk.  
“Sooo I take it that’s what you wanted?” Kylo was still gazing down at the creep bird, his attention rapt.  
“Yes, this is it.”  
“Great. So can we go talk to Skywalker now or…”  
“Get out.” Ren put the bird down on his unmade bed, where it delightedly began to shred the blanket, arranging the pieces in a circle.  
“Are you kidding me? You said you would—“  
“I’m not doing this today. I said get OUT.” Ren reached out his hand and used the Force to push him out of the door and back into the hall. It slid shut before Finn even had a chance to recover. Everything that had been driving him crazy for weeks exploded at once, and he began to repeatedly kick and punch the door.  
“You lying sack of Wampa shit, I don’t know why I trusted you, you’ve never once—ONCE—done anything you said you do. It’s your fault we lost her, alright? YOUR FAULT!” He kicked the door with all of his strength and immediately doubled over in pain, panting on the rich carpet. “Should have killed you when we had the chance.” Ren gave no sign he’d heard him, and Finn resolved to lie on the floor until his death from old age. Seemed to be everyone else’s plan.  
“You alright, buddy?”  
Finn removed his arm from his eyes, only to find Poe looking down at him quizzically. “In all honesty, Poe, I think I may have broken my foot. Maybe just leave me here to die.” He shut his eyes dramatically, arms splayed.   
“Alright, if that’s what you want. I’ll come back occasionally to mourn you, or at least step over you on my way to the refresher.” Finn opened one eye. Poe was clearly swallowing back laughter. “Come on, man, get up. Unless you want to be Solo’s next throw rug.” He extended his hand and Finn took it, wincing a little as he pressed down on his bruised foot.  
“I think I’ll live.”   
“Good man.” Poe clasped both of his arms and hugged him. “So, I’m really hungry, but after that we’re going to see Rose. And then we’re going to Master Skywalker’s rooms, from which we will pull him bodily if necessary.” BB-8 chirped enthusiastically by their ankles.  
Finn smiled and squeezed Poe’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re back.”  
“Me too.”


	5. Will and Won't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! I'm sorry I've been gone forever, but it was a much needed break. Now that TLJ has been out for awhile, I feel like I'm being absolutely drowned in reylo meta (not that this is a bad thing) but it does make me overthink much of what I'm writing. This story has been intimidating me lately, just because it is now so far removed from the current canon, but I think I've managed to get back on track with what I'm trying to do here. I'm working on a lot of new ideas, and I can't wait to share them with everyone.  
> That being said, enjoy! May the Force be with you, always.

“So princess, are you going to show me w-what we’re working on?” DJ leaned back in his chair and put his pinky between his teeth, utterly at ease. Rey, still slightly incensed by Snoke’s orders, was having to work hard at keeping her temper under control. Any emotional spike would be felt by Kylo, and he always leapt at the opportunity to get through her shield. She sat down across from DJ and glared. He looked back with interest.  
“Anyone ever told you that you have a glare that would freeze the balls off a Hoth scavenger, princess?”  
In her chest she felt amusement that didn’t belong to her, and a memory came to the front of her mind. A deep, tantalizing voice, antagonizing her:  
"You have that look in your eyes."  
With effort, she grit her teeth and firmly shut Kylo out again. “Not in such a poetic way, no. And I’m not a princess, so cut it out.”  
“Could’ve fooled me,” DJ muttered, eyes jumping around the room. “Is that songsteel?”  
She glanced at the curved weapon on the wall, more scythe-like than her usual taste. Her reflection looked back at her in the mirrored surface, puzzled.   
“I don’t know. Should I know that?”  
DJ grinned wickedly. “Y-you might look like royalty, but you didn’t come from anything, didja?”  
“Money isn’t important to me. Anyway—“ She put a small box on the table. “This is what I need you to do.”  
She gasped and jerked away when the hacker laid his rough hand over hers.  
“Money is important to everyone, sweetheart. Why’d I shoot you all that time ago, eh?”  
She raised her chin defiantly. “Because you’re a vile coward that was desperate.”  
DJ put his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “No, no, no. Maybe I didn’t want your murdering boyfriend stalking the galaxies—“ He held up his hands in mock surrender as she subconsciously pressed on his windpipe with the Force. “But it’s always just b-business to me. People like him, they make the other side afraid, o-o-kay? Afraid to fight. And in the long run, peace, even involuntary p-p-peace, costs me money. Because once one side has won, they’re not so desperate to pay out to people like me to keep us from going to the other s-s-side.”   
“And what proof do I have that you’re not going to turncoat as soon as it’s more convenient for you?”  
“Well, you d-d-don’t. But that’s something for you and old man Snoke to disc-c-cuss.” He looked at her stony expression. “Damn girl. Kill me at the end of it. Just know that that particular method will cause me to work more s-s-slowly. But who’s stopping you?”   
She bit back a reluctant grin. “You’re right. No one’s stopping me.”  
“Now that we’re on the same p-p-page. Show me what you’ve got.”  
Rey tapped on the box. “I need you to help me decipher the codes on this box. They’re probably older than what you’re used to working with, but the concept should be the same.”  
DJ turned the box over in his hands, running his filthy fingers over the symbols with a newly professional eye. “Is this obsidion?  
“I think so,” she said quietly. DJ peered critically at the seams of the stone edges.   
“It’ll take awhile, but I can d-d-do it. You got me a place set up?”  
“A trooper outside will show you where, I’m not sure. Know that if you try to escape, they will absolutely murder you, and there’s nothing I can do to help that.”  
“You talking about me or yourself, princess?”   
“What?”  
“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that you’re the b-b-best dressed slave I’ve ever s-seen. Live free? Don’t join.” Winking, he bowed out the door before she could throttle him. Rey threw herself into the chair closest to the viewport and tapped the button, looking out into the stars. She thought longingly of flying, and the falcon, and the pure joy of piloting her own ship. The Falcon. Han falling into the abyss on Star Killer. Luke, she knew now, leaving her behind on Jakku. That night with Ben on the Finalizer, his voice steadily filling the sleepy silence of the late hours they’d stayed up…  
“Rey.” She stiffened in her chair, but didn’t turn around. Damn it all and her traitorous heart.  
“Ben.”   
“You let me in.” His voice was eager. “Did you mean to?”  
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She kept looking out of the viewport.  
The quiet grew heavy. “What do you want, Rey?”  
“Nothing.”  
“Look at me!”   
Rey swallowed and slowly turned the chair around. Ben was standing in front of her, looking incredibly out of place without his usual black. Her eyes drifted up to his face, and she stifled a sort of whining noise. He looked like a corpse, his cheekbones sticking out, facing shockingly white against his dark hair. “Ben!” She was aghast.   
“What?” His eyes shifted to the side as he slightly stuck out his bottom lip.  
“You know what. Kriff Ben, have you been eating?” She gripped the sides of her chair, fending off the urge to cradle his emaciated face in her hands.  
“Sometimes.” He made an effort to recover his haughty tone. “It’s astonishingly substandard for a planet of indulgence.”  
“You’re lying to me, Ben.” The metallic taste that tinged their bond when he was being untruthful coated her tongue. “You have to eat.”  
“I don’t feel like it.” His eyes met hers, a challenge.   
“You’re going to look as disgusting as I did when we…when you…” She cursed internally, flustered at the memory of Ben’s hands on her protruding ribs, her small breasts, her sinewy arms. Rey knew she’d never looked like the other women she’d seen since going off planet, their bodies lush and curvaceous, never having known the feeling of a hollow stomach or the sore, muscly evidence of hard work. Even now, sitting in this throne-like chair and draped in finery, she could not escape the shame that he had seen her that way. A flush worked its way across her cheeks.  
“You never looked disgusting.” His voice was soft now, his eyes coasting over her seated form. “You look healthier, like they’re taking care of you.”   
She shrugged. “That’s impressive, as the food is ‘astonishingly substandard’ for the dominant force in the galaxy.” The corners of her mouth twitched.   
“You’re beautiful.”   
The words fell so simply, so plainly from his lips that he could have been commenting on the weather. Only the bond revealed the truth of his sincerity—she could feel his yearning for closeness as he pulled on it, and dimly, like looking through the bottom of a water glass, she saw herself from his perspective. Her secret had made her hair shine and her skin radiant, something only magnified by the blush his gaze brought out of her. She could feel him puzzling over the softness of her, trying to place what was different.   
She crossed her arms protectively over her stomach. “Get out of my head, Kylo.”  
Again she saw a flicker of something sinister in his deep eyes, something that made them grow darker. Her grandfather was right—something rabid still lurked in Ben Solo. Kylo Ren still lived. A part of her—the part that sang on Mustafar—was glad to recognize this. With alarming speed, his dark intensity was gone, replaced by a quiet submissiveness as he dropped his gaze.   
“Don’t go. I want to show you something.” He wrestled behind him for something she couldn’t see, the neckline of his white sleeping shirt lurching right to reveal the long scar she had left on his skin. She stared at it, transfixed at the thought of the other scars she knew that lay beneath his clothes, marks old and new that she had once traced with her fingers…  
Kylo stopped reaching into the empty air behind him and grew still. “I hear you, scavenger. By all means, don’t fight it.”  
She blushed again, glad he was turned and couldn’t see her face. “Show me what you have or I’m leaving.”  
“Here.” He stretched out his arms, revealing her porg, which Kylo was having a hard time keeping clasped between his large hands. He looked around it at Rey, shaking his dark hair out of his eyes. “Can you see it? Or is it better if I look at it?”  
“I can see him just fine.” She leaned forward and smiled at the tiny avian creature, which wailed shrilly. Kylo winced as she looked up. “You still don’t like him.”  
“It’s a bird. I never understood your infatuation with it.”  
She smirked and touched the thing’s tiny, twisted foot, surprised that should could feel it. “But yet you went to find him.”  
“The stormtrooper brought it to me.”   
Rey froze, immediately dropping her hands from the porg’s face, where she had been rubbing just above its bulging eyeballs. “Finn?”  
“That’s what you call him.” Ben looked churlish now, pulling the porg back towards his stomach. Rey’s eyes followed the movement before she made herself look back up at his stern face. “No one’s helping him here. He misses you.”  
She swallowed hard against the lump in her throat, fighting against the confusing mixture of longing and resentment. “You could help him.”  
“So could you.” Ben let the porg flutter onto his shoulder, where it began to root around in his dark hair. “What was the point in making sure we all got off of Crait if you were going to stay with him?”   
Rey could hear his unwillingness to voice Snoke’s name, even from light-years away, as though his old master would swoop down and drag him back. Something dark lingered between the two of them, an old rage and resentment that Rey swore she could still feel emanating from the Supreme Leader. In the deepest recesses of her mind, she often wondered if something more sinister had transpired between master and apprentice. Once or twice she’d even seen vestiges of the same stifled horror in Hux’s green eyes, but before she could focus and pull it out of his mind, it was gone.  
“I needed you to be safe,” she whispered. Kylo must have caught her train of thought because he inhaled sharply and leaned away from her, trying to put physical distance between them. She cut her nails into her palms to keep from reaching out. “You’re safe there.”  
“I’m not safe. We would have been safest together, in wild space. But you decided whatever you’re looking for out there is more important. It’s amazing that they—" Rey took this to mean the remaining Knights of Ren and Snoke—“haven’t rained down on us yet. He was never planning on letting me walk away, Rey. Think about what you’re doing.”  
His shield came down so fast that she blinked in the sudden strange emptiness of the room. She snarled and tapped her comlink.  
“I need to speak with General Hux.”


	6. Not the Only One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Just wanted to take the opportunity to apologize, because I really intended to have two chapters done today, but I just didn't get there. For some reason, people want me to do my job while I'm here. Rude, right?  
> Anyway, enjoy, and I'll try to have the other up on Monday, assuming I get through my requests.  
> May the Force be with you.

General Armitage Hux was not accustomed to being summoned or interrupted. Ever since he had torn into one of Phasma's proteges for disturbing him during one of his rare moments of peace, most officers gave his chambers wide berth. Or at least those with brains in their skulls, Hux thought furiously. He’d only just sat down at his desk when his communicator lit up, bathing him blue light. He raised his fist, intending to smash the ignore panel and forward it to Mitaka, but something gave him pause. The connection code was a random scramble of numbers, definitely nothing First Order authorized. He let his palm hover over the screen before tapping it violently and speaking.  
“This is General Hux. This had better be good!”  
“Oh, it is, General.”   
“You!” Hux tapped the video icon to pull Ren’s hologram into a larger size until the man appeared to be sitting across from him. From a quick once over, Hux determined that his rival looked broken and woebegone, a fact that enthralled him. Ren self-consciously pulled a thin blanket over his shoulders, looking for all the world like he wanted nothing more than to hide in it. Enough gloating—Hux had a more pressing concern.  
“How did you get my code?”   
Ren tapped his temple twice. “Always had it. And don’t bother trying to trace this call—they won’t get here before I’m gone.”  
Hux gritted his teeth, knowing the stupid boy was right. Because of his privacy mania, he doubted there was a single technician at this end of the ship right now. Ren would know that, of course.  
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Ren?”  
“A warning…and a deal.” Kylo Ren remained silent as Hux ran his hand along the underside of the desk, finding purchase on his pack of cigarettes.   
Deathsticks, Ren always called them. He struck one hard against the desktop, making it spark. With a long drag, he reclined in his seat, waiting. Over the years he’d spent with Ren, Hux had come to the realization that inaction and silence drove the volatile man crazy. To find out what he needed to know, all Hux had to do was wait.  
It worked. “I want the girl back,” Ren said steadily. Hux had the impression that the boy was not as calm about the issue as he was trying to appear. There was something menacing about the drawn out ‘r’ sound on the word girl, as though he’d barely been able to get it through his clenched teeth. It occurred to him that Ren didn’t know about the…other thing, and he weighed the merits of leveraging this information now. No…Snoke would be displeased. Still, he would have relished holding it over Ren’s head.  
Pity.  
“She is the Supreme Leader’s apprentice and not mine to give, even if I wanted to.” He blew a stream of smoke at his ceiling. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t she leave you? Something tells me that even if I could arrange passage, she wouldn’t want to come back.”  
Holographic Ren’s fingertips twitched, as though he were fantasizing about strangling him. But when he spoke, it was in a voice of determined calm.  
“You might want to get rid of her,” Ren said quietly. This made Hux uneasy. He only deigned to kill two types of people: threats and liabilities. Something told him the girl was the former.  
Still, he tried his luck at the softer option. “If the resistance was going to come for her, they would have done it already. Are there even more than fifty of you left?”  
Ren shook his head. “I don’t know how many there are.”  
Lies. “What threat could a 120 pound Jakku scavenger bring to the Order?”  
A laugh escaped Ren’s lips. “Not to the Order, Hux. To you.”  
He snorted. “She’s got nothing on me.”  
“She’s looking for information on our upbringing.” Ren let the sentence hang between them, waiting. Hux took a rather shaky drag of his cigarette. He didn’t try to delude himself that Kylo Ren meant upbringing in regard to respective childhoods. No, Ren meant the upbringing they had together, with Snoke, when Ren was just passing out of his teenage years and Hux was making his rapid ascent through the ranks of the Order. It wasn’t a time that he ever wanted to relive.   
“And where exactly would she get that information?”  
In answer, Ren tapped his temple again. “Don’t forget what she is, Hux. And know that for whatever she can glean from you, she has an even deeper insight into my mind.”  
Hux had enough of Ren romping through his mind to make him keen to avoid it with the scavenger girl. “What do you want me to do?”  
“Arrange a mission for her. Tell me where it is. Don’t let her into your head.”  
“Are you going to leave a number for me to contact you?”  
“Are you stupid?” Ren was standing now, as though quite keen to end the call. “I’ll reach out to you soon.” He raised his eyes searchingly to Hux’s. “Remember—close her out.”  
******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************  
Armitage Hux hurried along the corridors of the dreadnought, smoothing the collar of his charcoal grey uniform as he went. Very soon, he would be exchanging the grey for black, and a new greatcoat to go along with it. He smiled slightly, taking care to keep his head down. It wouldn’t do for someone to see him looking happy just hours after his father’s…unfortunate death. Still, the feeling of triumph was hard to squash. Telling his father’s personal guard, Cardinal, had been the best part thus far. With amusement, Hux wondered if it were possible to hear a heart break through all that red armor.  
There would be no grief from him.  
The doors to the Supreme Leader’s chamber slid open without fanfare, and Hux skittered through, trying not to look too eager. He came to parade rest at a respectable distance from the throne, resting both hands behind his back. This was it, his long awaited moment—  
“Commodore. Condolences on your loss.” Snoke appeared, his broken gait making him lean heavily to one side. Amusement colored his tone—Brendol Hux’s death did not come as a surprise to him. Nothing ever did. Hux allowed himself a small smirk in response.  
“Much appreciated, Supreme Leader.”   
“I’m sure you’re wondering why I called you here.” This was it, here was the moment he’d been waiting for. He'd passed ranks before, maybe he’d skip the rank of General entirely, go straight to Grand Marshall—  
“I want you to meet someone.” Hux had to work hard to recover his face, to not let shock flit across it.   
“Of course.” Rage swelled in him. After all he’d done, after what he’d just accomplished, he dared to ignore this triumph—  
“Careful, Commodore.” Hux blushed as Snoke lowered himself onto the throne, bringing his hand to his mouth while he chuckled. “The hand that feeds you, and all that.” He watched him with a nasty smile.   
“My apologies, Leader Snoke.” Hux waited a beat before asking. “You want me to meet someone?”  
“Yes.” Snoke’s face turned sinister and calculating. “My new apprentice, Kylo Ren.”  
A hooded figure stepped out from an adjoining room, approaching with slow, lengthy strides. Hux studied the newcomer critically, unwilling to show even an ounce of fear or misgiving as he approached. The apprentice stopped in front of Hux and threw back his hood, taking an aggressive step into Hux’s personal space.  
His initial reaction was confusion. He had been bracing himself for some monstrosity, a figure vaguely reminiscent of the legendary Darth Vader. Instead, the man in front of him was barely out of boyhood, his face a confusing mixture of big eyes and red lips that stood out almost violently against his pale skin. Skin that looked a little worse for wear—a cut divided his cheek, and a bruise bloomed above his eyebrow. Meaning, Hux thought waspishly, that the man was letting them heal naturally in a show of bravado. Unless, of course, he hadn’t been allowed to heal them…Hux shot a nervous glance at the Supreme Leader.  
That was always a possibility.  
“Kylo Ren, Armitage.” Snoke pressed his fingertips together, looking on eagerly. “You two will lead my legions…together.”  
Ren jerked around to look at Snoke with apparent disgust, but it was Hux who made the mistake of speaking first.  
“Supreme Leader, you cannot be serious. He’s just a boy!” The words no sooner left his lips than he felt some alien pressure encircle his neck and begin to squeeze. Hux coughed, clawing at the invisible hand around his throat.  
“Kylo!” The Supreme Leader was on his feet now, striding towards them both. “Release him.” The pressure disappeared as the boy stepped away, glaring at Hux venomously. Ren pressed his hand against his own shoulder, mopping at it. When he pulled away, the fingers of his glove were sticky with blood. Hux looked at his own hands, shocked to see his hidden blade in plain view, coated in scarlet. He didn’t remember pulling it, just desperation.  
For some reason, Snoke was smiling. “If one of you kills the other, I will be extremely displeased.” Hux coughed again, resisting the urge to massage his throat. The new psychopath continued to glare at him as blood dripped steadily to the floor. “Do I make myself clear?”  
“Yes, master.” The boy’s deep voice was full of muted anger. This stunned Hux more than anything else he’d heard today. He might fear Snoke, as any normal man would, but he’d not yet stooped to calling him master.   
Small victories.  
“I said, do I make myself clear…General?”  
There it was, the thing he’d been waiting for. With effort, he worked a calm expression onto his face. “Of course, Supreme Leader. The honor is great.”  
“Yes, it is,” Snoke said, limping back to his throne. “Mind you don’t disappoint me. It’s not off to a very good start, is it?” He waved his hand carelessly at the door, dismissing Hux without a backward glance. The apprentice followed like a shadow, kneeling in front of the grand chair.   
He walked smartly towards the door, nearly overflowing with happiness. If he could just get out of here, perhaps he could meet with Phasma, start going over their plans…  
“He’s very much your match, you spoiled boy, you just don’t realize it.” Snoke’s soft voice carried across the chamber. “He’s illegitimate, trying desperately to prove himself worthy of the line, and you’re doing all you can to split yourself from yours. I think you’ll provide me with an interesting dynamic.” The apprentice responded, but his low voice simply sounded like a rumble in Hux’s ears.  
Just as he reached the doors, Hux—General Hux—made the mistake of turning around. Snoke was holding the boy’s face in one of his gnarled hands, considering.   
“Let me remind you not to embarrass me like that again.” The doors slid shut right as the boy began screaming, turning Hux’s stomach with the raw pain that he knew, from experience, was now wrapping itself around the apprentice’s mind.  
He searched inside himself for some small semblance of pity or concern that Rae Sloane had so desperately tried to instill in him in their short time together. She had been the only worthy mother figure he’d ever had, and he just knew she’d want him to be horrified, to help the glaring, broken boy still in the chamber with Snoke. Which was the exact mentality that had brought about her death.  
He didn’t feel pity. He didn’t feel sad. Just one single emotion overtook him:  
Relief.  
He was no longer the only one.  
***********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************  
Dazed by the corporealness of the memory, Hux struck another cigarette against his desk, desperately pulling on it to get a handle on himself. Damn Kylo Ren, and damn the Force, and all of it. He hadn’t been beaten and abused his entire life only to have some Jakku savage tear his accomplishments away from him. Digging in his head, indeed.   
He was mostly annoyed that this revelation meant that Ren was protecting him by consequence. They’d both spent their mutual years together fighting to be the favored son, because losing meant punishment, and much worse. The only thing that had saved Hux after the defeat on Star Killer Base was Ren’s epic fuck up, and he still shuddered thinking of what could have been. The loathing Snoke had instilled between the two of them would never be undone. Still…to save himself, Hux was going to have to protect the hulking madman.  
Time to let his military mind take over, then. Hux enjoyed exploiting weakness. And he knew that the girl, despite what she had brought Leader Snoke to believe, still had one big one. When his comm lit up again, he tapped it much more gently and smiled at the trembling holo of Mitaka.  
“Tell Lady Rey that I gladly accept her invitation.”


	7. We Were Friends

Even as Hux’s hologram flickered away, Kylo could see the beginning of his memory of their first meeting. He swallowed back the acrid taste of bile, praying the Hux had more brains than he let on and would be able to keep Rey out of his head. That was certainly not something he wanted her to see.   
Which meant, of course, that was exactly what she was looking for. If he didn’t miss her so badly, it would have made him smile.   
“That all?” Dameron was waiting with his hand outstretched, waggling his fingers in Kylo’s direction. He slapped the communicator into the pilot’s palm.  
“That’s all. Thanks.”  
“Don’t thank me until we get her back. Maybe not even then. This is for Finn, not you.” Poe stuffed the communicator into his back pocket. Kylo wasn’t supposed to have one, strictly speaking. Not that it mattered. He could talk to the only person that interested him just fine without technology.  
When she let him.  
“For Finn,” Kylo mused, reaching out. With a jolt, he realized that he and Dameron were experiencing the same emotion—jealousy. Suddenly the hazy shape that he’d gleaned from his earlier conversation with Poe about his mother’s ring made sense. The pilot did have someone in mind. “You…” He searched for a word that would sum up his suspicion. This was unfamiliar territory. “You like the stormtrooper?”  
Dameron looked at him strangely. “He saved my life when you were going to kill me.”  
“You say that like I’m such a monster, like you didn’t try to kill me just before we took you.” For a moment it was almost like they were standing in the sands of Jakku again, with Dameron’s blaster beam quivering in the air between them. Kylo remembered the dread he’d felt when he realized who his attacker was, the fear that he’d recognize Ben Solo…and he had.  
“You were killing people. Violently.”  
He scoffed. “You’ve done the same and worse. I guess you think it makes a difference to do it from a cockpit where you can’t see your opponent. I’m just too familiar when I kill someone.” Poe didn’t argue, just kept looking at him. “You would have done the same thing in my place.”  
Poe rested his back against the wall, looking incredulous. “You sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure you’ve been with us for quite some time now, and no one has strapped you to a board and ripped your mind open.”  
“If you had the capability, would you try it?” Kylo took Dameron’s silence as assent. “I thought so. War is war.”  
Poe pushed himself away from the wall, looking stern. “Your mother would never have done it.”  
Kylo made himself look at a fixed point over Dameron’s head. “I think you should go.”  
“Yeah, maybe I should.” He kept his eyes averted as Poe made for the door, only catching a blur of the pilot’s orange jump suit.   
His mother never would have done it.  
“Ben.” He turned his head towards his old name reflexively to find Poe still standing in his door. “How did you…how’d you know about Finn?” Dameron looked away as if he’d said something embarrassing and used his toe to turn over a crumpled page that Kylo had flung off his desk earlier. Upside down, Kylo could see the scribbled modifications he’d been working on for the Falcon. Something to tempt Rey with later, if she’d talk to him.  
“I’ve…felt it before.” The porg nudged him from behind, cooing softly. All he wanted in the galaxy right now was for Dameron to get out of his face.  
“Oh.” Poe stood there a moment longer, looking at Kylo’s notes. “Ben, do you want to come down and eat?”  
“Not right now.” Dameron nodded and finally left, leaving Kylo and the porg behind.   
Later, as Kylo tried to slink away to the refresher, his foot bumped something precariously. Someone had left two portion packs and a bottle of water by his door. Thinking of how Rey had squirreled away portions in her room when they were together, unable to lose the fear of not having enough to eat, he angrily tossed the food in the trash. Maybe he wasn’t eating as much as usual, but he was trying. He’d always been thin, and he knew that the marked change in his physique was due in large part to the fact that he wasn’t training every day, not that he wasn’t eating.   
The food had to have come from Dameron, the consummate golden boy. Kylo punched the wall, seething. He hated pity, and he hated all of them. He didn’t need a friend; he needed Rey back.   
The bond was going to kill him.  
*******************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************  
“Ben! Do it again!” Eleven-year-old Poe Dameron was balancing on his tip toes on a low wall. His younger friend, Ben Solo, giggled and lifted his hands.   
“Okay, go!” Poe leapt straight into the air, arms flung out and plummeted a few meters towards the ground. Just before he hit the earth, Ben’s eyes narrowed in concentration and Poe slowed to the point that his feet touched down on the earth harmlessly. He smiled with delight.   
“Good one, Ben!”  
“I know, it’s getting easier!” Ben shook his skinny arms, as though he could feel physically feel the strain of what he’d just accomplished. It had taken them several days in the courtyard of the big house where their parents worked to get to this point, and cost Poe several bruises. Their mothers never asked, and it didn’t matter—Poe was much more grown up than him, and he could take a punch like nobody’s business. Strictly speaking, Ben wasn’t supposed to use the Force like this, but visits with Uncle Luke were few and far in between. And the longer between lessons, the more…restless the Force felt within him.   
It was great luck, then, that Poe had tripped backwards off the wall earlier in the week. Ben wasn’t sure what he’d meant to do—it was all involuntary reaction—but he lunged towards Poe and stopped him, quivering, in the air before he hit the ground. After their initial shock, the two had rolled in the dirt and howled with laughter at the looks on each other’s faces, Ben imitating the wild spasms Poe’s arms had made as he grabbed for nothing and Poe striking a dramatic version of the pose in which Ben had caught him. It was from this that their game had been born, with increasingly dramatic results leading up to Ben’s latest catch. There only worry was that their parents would leave one of their horribly boring meetings and catch them at it.   
Ben didn’t care though. It was fun to use the Force. It felt good.  
Poe was jigging in place, a ball of energy where Ben felt depleted. He seemed to sense this, but was kind enough not to mention in. Instead, he dropped to his knees and rummaged in the dirty leather bag he carried everywhere with them. Ben plunked down beside him and caught the apple Poe tossed to him. They leaned against the wall, looking up at the Rebellion memorial opposite it. Ben took a big bite of his apple.  
“Is your dad still away?” Poe knew this was a sensitive question, but it was one that Ben would tolerate from him—at least on a good day. The younger boy chewed and swallowed thoughtfully.  
“Yeah, he’s still gone, but he should be back soon. Him and Chewie are on Kashyyyk again.” Ben dug his fingers into the grass. “He called me last night, though!”  
“Stars, can you imagine a whole planet full of Wookies? It must be something to see, right? Chewie is the only Wookie I’ve ever met, but I’m going to meet loads once I have my own ship.” Poe mimed buckling into a cockpit and tapped an imaginary headset. “This is Captain Poe Dameron, requesting landing permission for Kashyyyk.”  
“That’s not going to work, dummy. They won’t be able to understand you. You’ll get your arms ripped off.” Ben crunched his apple again.  
Poe looked defiant. “Well then, if you’re so smart, why don’t you translate for me, Prince Ben?” Those were usually fighting words, but Ben just looked him before throwing back his head and releasing a series of guttural howls and purrs that, Poe had to admit, were perfect Shyriiwook pronunciations.   
“No offense, but I think I’d rather have my arms ripped off.” Ben whipped his apple core at Poe, who returned fire with his own, and soon they were in full-scale war. Rocks, bugs, even the occasional mouse droid, all became artillery fire. They were laughing to the point of tears, and Ben began to use the Force to send multiple objects toward Poe at once.  
“No fair!” Poe rolled to avoid being conked in the head by some unfortunate lizard that had crossed their path. “No Force!”  
“It is too fair,” Ben protested. “You’re bigger than me!” The two were so involved in their pretend battle that they didn’t hear the newcomers until they were right on top of them. Poe watched the smile slide off Ben’s face as he turned around and said aggressively:  
“What do you want, Kayden?”   
Kayden was a Twi’lek boy, just a little older than Ben, whose mother worked with the Senate committee. It was just one of those things, Poe had always thought. Some people just aren’t meant to be friends. Ben and Kayden had hated each other from the get-go, and nothing had changed over the last few years, unless it was that the boy had increased his torture of Ben. Kayden smiled nastily, looking to each of the children he’d brought with them.  
“Not very nice, Solo. We were just wondering why we weren’t invited.”  
“You’re never invited.” Poe could sense a fight brewing here, and thought it best to head it off early. Ben’s ears were starting to turn red.   
“I didn’t ask you, Dameron. Aren’t you like his servant?” Several of their classmates behind Kayden looked uncomfortable at this sentence—Poe watched them shift uneasily and look away. He flushed, embarrassed.   
“No.”  
“Watch your mouth, Kayden.” Ben was skinny, but he was rather taller than the Twi’lek when he stood up. “Leave us alone.”  
“What are you going to do, Solo? Use your magic powers to scare me?”  
“You better watch out, Kayden. Maybe he will!” Raeda, a girl from their class, looked at Ben with trepidation. “The Jedi had all kinds of power!”  
“Oh, please,” Kayden scoffed. He hopped up the stairs of the memorial and perched on top of it. “He’s not a Jedi. If he were, maybe his hero dad would stick around more and he wouldn’t have to play with the trash around here. Isn’t that right, Benny?”  
Crack.  
Everyone screamed as Ben stretched out his hand towards Kayden, eyes brimming with enraged tears. One second the boy was sitting on the monument, and the next he was lying in a pool of his own blood on the marble walkway beneath it. A crack had traveled all the way up the center of the memorial, cleaving it neatly in two. Two of the kids took off without a backwards glance; several of them ran screaming for help. Ben turned to Poe, mouthing wordlessly.  
“I…I..didn’t mean to…I didn’t mean…” He staggered down the steps to where Raeda leaned over Kayden’s unconscious form. Poe didn’t move from his frozen place on the steps.  
“Raeda, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Let me get my mom—“  
“Get away from me!” The girl jumped up and pushed Ben hard in the chest, then stumbled back several steps. “Just get away!” Tear tracks stood out on her blue cheeks. “Why would you do that, Ben?”  
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered again. He turned and ran, leaving Poe still frozen on the steps.  
No one had been able to find Ben after the accident, and it wasn’t for lack of trying. Senator Organa was so worried by the time she cornered Poe that he almost felt bad for lying to her. However, he’d rather snuggle with a rathtar than betray Ben’s hiding place. After he assured her that he had no idea where Ben would be, he waited fifteen minutes before sneaking out and heading to the nearest hangar.   
No one was traveling much these days. Both Poe and Ben’s parents spent their days locked in stuffy rooms, in long meetings that seemed to make everyone grumpy. All their mothers would tell them was that rebuilding the Republic was hard work. In fact, Han Solo seemed to be the only person that ever left Chandrila anymore. Poe trekked towards the Millennium Falcon’s docking bay, knowing he’d find his friend there…  
…and stopped short. To his surprise, Ben was already talking to someone. In the dim light, Poe couldn’t see the extra, but Ben’s voice carried to him.  
“I don’t know…I guess I liked it. It really was an accident, though.” He paused, but Poe couldn’t hear the stranger’s response. “Of course I could do it again if I tried, but why would I want to? I’m going to be in trouble.” There was another pause in which Poe guessed Ben was listening to his confidant. “Yes, it did feel good.” A shorter pause this time, then: “When am I going to meet you? You can’t help me if I’m not with you.”  
Poe couldn’t stand it anymore. He stepped into the bay, making Ben jump.  
“Who are you talking to?”  
“No one. I wasn’t talking to anyone.” Ben was scrambling out of the bay, away from Poe. “I asked you not to bother me here.” Without waiting for his response, Ben ran out of the hangar. Poe glanced nervously around the bay, going so far as to grope in the dark corners, but there was no one there. It didn’t occur to him until he was back in his bedroom that Ben hadn’t once asked about Kayden.


	8. A Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going somewhere with this, I swear.

“General Hux.” Rey entered Hux’s private quarters, looking around with distaste. “Is it your normal procedure to frighten your men so much that no one will come within twenty meters of this place? I had to leave Mitaka back there.” She unclasped her thick cape and tossed it over the back of his sofa, grinning slightly at Hux’s wince as it fell to the floor. “I’m sorry, do my scavenger manners upset you?”  
Hux smiled back acidly. “Of course not. Please, sit.” He gestured to the sofa that she had just dumped her cape on. She raised one eyebrow and sat smartly on the cushions, crossing her arms. Even now there was a bit of defiance about her, a generalized sense of superiority that Hux appreciated. There hadn’t been an ounce of love lost between the two of them when she’d first arrived with Kylo, and things hadn’t improved since she’d left Ren on Crait. Still, it was hard not to admire her. She wasn’t whiney in the way that Kylo was. Had been.  
She kept her face expressionless as he sat down across from her and handed her a cup of tea. “Do you really think I’ll drink anything you give me?”   
“My dear girl, if I was going to kill you…well, poison would be at the top of the list. But I’m not dealing in it right now, I assure you.” Hux leaned back and sipped his own. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”  
Rey sat her cup down. “I think we can help each other, is all.” She watched Hux digest this over another swallow of tea, knowing that nothing the man did was without calculation.  
“Hmm.” The general made to pull at his collar, then stopped. Rey assumed he didn’t approve of fidgeting. “I’m sure you understand why I’m disinclined to agree with that statement.”  
“Oh, yes.” Rey smiled, then smacked Hux’s tea cup out of his hand. “Listen to me. When you helped Snoke play Kylo Ren and brought about the death of Anakin Solo--don’t deny it—you were doing it for yourself. Because Kylo, despite the fact that he no longer wanted the throne at that point, was still a threat to you. You thought you’d break his mind, and save yourself.” She tossed a handkerchief to him, and he mopped the spattered tea off of his face.  
“I’ve been taught a great deal about breaking minds, and I can do it much better than you, General. So really, really consider what you say to me.”  
“You forget your place, scavenger.” Hux, in contrast to Rey, was growing quieter.   
“And you take too much comfort in yours. Now, will you listen to me or not?” She was breathing hard, praying she hadn’t made a mistake in coming here. Hux held her gaze for a few more heartbeats, and then slowly nodded.  
“As you’ve noticed, I have a problem.” She watched Hux’s eyes fall to her abdomen and flick back to her face, impassive. “That I think, like I said, you can help me with.”  
“I already offered my help with that. You were resistant to that route.” Rey shot him a filthy look and he pressed her lips together again.  
“Very soon, I am going on a little trip—with the Supreme Leader’s blessing, of course. I’ll need you to lend me Mitaka, DJ, and small unit.”   
“Where will you go? Back to Mustafar to sacrifice a few of my soldiers?”  
“Jakku.” Rey watched his expression carefully. Yes, he knew what she was looking for there, she could see it in his eyes. Hux was older than her, he would have known Sloane and possibly even Rax.   
The General brought his clasped hands to his mouth. “Jakku,” he said slowly. “I take it you’re not returning to junk ships.”  
Ah, so he did know. Then Snoke was right.  
“No, definitely not.”   
Hux began tapping on a data pad without looking at her. “So you’ll need a full unit, a ship, two pilots…one is never enough, they tend to die rather easily, expensive things. Prisoner escort for that DJ, a med droid, and reassignment for Mitaka.” He slowed down and looked up. “Anything else?”  
“Yes.” She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. The request tumbled from her lips inelegantly. “When I have this child, I need you to take it and name her as your heir.” This time Hux really did laugh out loud. Oh, wouldn’t Ren just love this?  
“I’m not joking.” Rey kicked her feet up on his coffee table. “I’ve sensed the presence of someone else extremely strong with the Force lately, someone I think could be a threat to my daughter. Snoke has sensed it too, and it seems to have come as a surprise, which concerns me. As the last of the Skywalker line, I think you understand why this child would be in danger from someone like that.”  
Hux was close to snarling, although she couldn’t tell if it was because of her request or the fact that she had her shoes on his pristine furniture. “You want me to risk my life for Ren’s child? I didn’t take you for a fool.”  
“I’m not, but you might be. You have to know that Snoke wouldn’t want you to proclaim who she is to the galaxy. For all appearances, she’d be yours. Surname Hux.” She waited a minute, and then continued. “I think you and I both know you owe Kylo.”  
He didn’t argue with her. “And where am I supposed to have magically gotten this child from?”  
“We’d make up something. Some underling officer, a sanitation worker…I believe your family was good for that? Your mother was one of your father’s kitchen workers, right?”  
Rey could tell she had touched a nerve. There was a muscle jumping in Hux’s jaw, and a vein stood out in his forehead. When he pulled back his lips to smile, it was more threatening than a howl of rage.  
“You’re quite right, little scavenger. Unfortunately, as precious as children are to the Order, this kind of thing would ruin me. So I have to decline your offer.” He looked pleased at having poked a hole in her plan so easily.  
“I thought you’d say that, General, really I did. So I found a way to make certain that you will never face any sort of repercussion.” She leaned forward, which was becoming increasingly difficult, and slid something from her pocket to the table. Hux snatched up the small pin, eyes wide.  
“Who could cross you…Grand Marshal?” She smiled as Hux floundered, still staring at the insignia. With her own data pad, she produced document holograms and shuffled through them. “You add a considerable amount of credits to your allowance, a new armada, and most importantly…” She flipped the screens faster. “Ah yes. Immunity.”  
“How did you…”  
“I told you. If you help me, I’ll help you. All of this…” She turned off the screen. “…is dependent upon you agreeing to help myself and Snoke with what I just proposed.”  
Hux took a deep breath and considered. The girl obviously had serious influence over Snoke that he could not afford to lose. As for this “presence” that troubled both of them, well…he wasn’t above putting the child out the airlock if things looked grim. And this, Grand Marshal, what he had desired more than anything else…  
“You’ve been in my head.”  
“Occasionally. You’ll be pleased to know your years with Kylo have made your mental shields stronger than the typical mind.” Rey didn’t feel bad about it; Hux was a dangerous foe.  
Whatever his misgivings, Hux was clutching the medal tightly. “I’ll do it. Will you not be coming back after or…?”  
She was shocked. “Of course I will! Just publicly, she needs to look like yours. The fact that I’m here is just…happenstance.”  
“You’re really not going to tell Ren?”  
Something twisted inside of her again, and it wasn’t her daughter. “There’s nothing to be gained by telling him. You know how he’d react.” Hux nodded mutely. “I’ll let Snoke know that you’ve accepted. Can you have my team ready to go in two days?”  
“Yes.”  
She called her cape back to her hands. “Hux, there’s something else I need before we go back to Jakku. I owe a considerable amount of credits to Unkar Plutt, and the risk of bounty hunters or him—“  
“It’s taken care of.”  
“W-what?”   
Hux looked at her incredulously. “Ren paid off your debt shortly after you first got here. His accountant nearly blew a gasket.” He looked at her strangely. “Did he not tell you?”  
She had her hands balled into fists, nails cutting into her palms. “No, he didn’t.” Ben. Before he was hers, before she had loved him, had done this for her. Not for fear of bounty hunters, but in case she ever wanted to go back home. Her chest ached, and she felt as he stirred restlessly at the other end of their bond.  
“Thank you. I have to go.”  
Hux watched her leave, slowly reclining on the sofa in a way he’d never do in public. It had worked, and the masterstroke had gone off without a hitch. He hadn’t lied about what Ren had done, but he’d been right to guess the girl didn’t know. The look on her face…  
Phase two. He reached for his comm and spoke into it. “I need two pilots for a unit designed specifically for Lady Rey. I think Poldin LeHuse would be a good fit.” He smiled as the cadet on the other end confirmed the assignment. Now all that was left to do was wait for Ren to call back.   
'She’s going to Jakku, Ren. With your best friend.' He laughed aloud again, congratulating himself on a job well done. 'And I’m going to end you.'


	9. Preparations

“Ben! A word please?” Rey huffed and threw herself, fully dressed, into her empty bathtub. It only took a few seconds for Ben to appear, blinking slightly in the dimness of her lights. He looked left and right before his eyes found her lying in the tub.  
“Why are you on the floor?” Only able to see her, he groped blindly until he found the edge of the tub and swung himself onto the side. He gingerly slid down into the tub, forcing Rey to bend her knees to keep her feet from being squashed. Once he realized where they were, he tried to grin at her. “I know you’re from a desert planet, but most people take their clothes off and use the water.” A hopeful look lit his face. “I could show you.”  
“Stuff it, nerfherder.” It was incredibly hard to be angry with him like this, with his knees bunched up to his big ears and his eyes lit up like she’d made his whole day by coming here to yell at him. “We need to talk about Unkar Plutt.”  
A darkness shadowed Kylo’s face. “What about him?”  
“Hux told me about the debt.”  
“Yes, and?” He searched her face uncomprehendingly. “Why are you so angry?” She could feel him trying to search her head through the bond, and his utter bewilderment at the sheer number of shields that she had up against him.   
“Why would you do that?” She held up her hand in warning as he started to speak. “If you say for me I will punch you right in the mouth, and I won’t feel bad.”  
His mouth wobbled, like he was very tempted to laugh at her and thought better of it.“But it was…”  
“Ben,” she said, forbidding.  
“I’m telling you, I wanted to do it.”  
“Why, Ben? I had just gotten here, and the last time we saw each other I mauled your face. So why would you care about what I’d left behind on Jakku?”   
He pushed his hair backwards out of his face, breaking through the icy veneer of Kylo Ren and showing the boy beneath. “I didn’t want you to leave.”  
“Liar.” She kicked her foot at him, not sure if it would make contact. Ben gave a muffled grunt, so she supposed it did.  
“No, listen. After you got here, I was afraid something would make you want to leave, whether that be Skywalker or your friends or Unkar. So I took care of the easiest one. I knew that Snoke wouldn’t let you leave once you got here.” He glowered. “And I was right.”  
“I’m here because I want to be,” she said softly.  
He wanted to argue, she could feel it, but he didn’t want her to leave either. “And anyway, your moral compass is so strong that if I had killed Unkar like I wanted to, you would have been angry.”  
“I…yes, you’re right,” she admitted. She studied him critically. “Ben, have you talked to your mom about Anakin yet?”  
“She’s still out.” His voice was hollow. “No change at all.”  
She grabbed his hand, and remembered the first time she had ran her thumb over his knuckles, before Crait, in their cabin. The night he had realized he loved her.  
“I do love you, sweetheart.” Ben squeezed her hand just shy of hurting it. She had to swallow back tears when the bond pulled on her core. Luckily, Ben turned his head to look at something behind him and cursed.  
“Who’s there,” she managed quietly.  
“Take your pick. Dameron. Luke. They’re my only guests.” He paused to look over his shoulder again. “Rey, I have to go. It’s a med droid”   
“Okay.” She took his big hand in both of hers and kissed it. “Ben…let me know.”  
He nodded. “Of course.”  
Kylo’s image had barely faded before her communicator chimed. Mitaka.  
“Yeah?” She dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, already annoyed at herself. If she kept this up, Ben was going to come flying in here without a plan.   
“I just spoke with General Hux. He suggested I come and meet with you?” Mitaka tended to uptalk when he had questions he didn’t want to ask. Rey crawled out of the bathtub and tried to right herself as best she could.   
“I’ll be right there.” She tapped the communicator to end the call and trotted to the door. Mitaka was waiting for her on the other side. “Hi.”  
“Hi.” Mitaka smiled. “It seems that we will be working together a little longer?”  
“Yes.” She smiled wryly. “You’re the only person I can stand here.”  
“Ouch, sweetheart.” DJ did an admirable impression of a swagger as he walked through the door, considering that two stormtroopers flanked him. “Way to make the rest of us feel g-g-good.”  
She didn’t back down. “Like I said,” she continued to Mitaka. He chuckled.  
“So we’re going on a trip, eh? Anywhere good?” DJ was bouncing on his toes.  
“Not unless you count the galaxy’s biggest junkyard as good.” The newcomer, a young woman with dark skin and shockingly white hair, sat down at Rey’s table like she lived there. “Kaista Crajul. I’m your pilot.”   
“Great,” Rey said. She meant it. Something about the girl was more human the majority of the people on this ship, if a bit cocky.   
“One of her pilots.” The man who walked through the door would have been intimidating simply in his height, blue skin and red eyes notwithstanding. The combination of all three factors made the room take on a hushed noise. However, DJ could be counted upon to break the ice.  
“K-k-kriff, are there still Chiss around? What did you do wrong?” DJ’s stormtrooper jabbed him in the ribs, a familiar motion that told Rey they had been assigned to this escort for quite some time. The Chiss ignored DJ, and turned to Rey.  
“Poldin LeHuse. TIE pilot and now your personal—“  
“Errand boy?” Kaista grinned. “I believe you’re my copilot.”   
LeHuse glared, fingering the blaster on his hip. “Not likely.”  
Mitaka frowned. “This should be fun?”  
Rey smiled. “It already is.”


	10. Bargaining Chips

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys! Once again, I'm sorry I drag my feet with updating this one.   
> I have no excuse except to say I'm writing a lot, both for fun and professionally, and I'm just super slow from being sick.   
> Thanks for sticking with me, and may the Force be with you.

Luke Skywalker had felt the change before the med droids knocked on his door. Even at his most remote, he had always been able to feel his sister flickering there, through their undefinable connection in the Force. Lately it had dulled to a low, barely there hum.  
Today, it roared back to life. He swung the door open as soon as he heard the sound of the approaching droids and wordlessly followed them down the corridor. The closer he drew to the medical wing, the more his footsteps slowed until he had stopped entirely. Ducking into a corner, he questioned his resolve. Would Leia even want to see him, after everything? She’d not been impressed with him the last time they had spoken, and that was before he’d sold her son out to Snoke. He slunk into an empty room, barely missing Dameron as the man blew by him, running flat out for the medical wing.  
Ben was bound to be there too. The boy had been hiding even more than Luke had, and days turned into weeks of stretches in which no one saw them. At the beginning of their time here, Luke had been almost hopeful that Ben would come to help them here. When he’d purified his kyber crystal, he’d been certain that this was the turning point. But no; his nephew’s distrust had deepened, and he’d all but given up.  
Sighing, he left the room and moved towards the door, taking care to tread lightly. Poe and Ben were both gathered at the side of a bed, their backs to him. It was curious how much they resembled brothers in that moment, with their tousled dark heads close together. Maybe they were once. If he remembered correctly, Leia had all but adopted the boy after his parents died, and he was a fixture long before that. He’d come back later.  
“Luke.” That was Leia’s voice alright, regal and imperious, even if it was a bit soft. There was no way he could slink away now, and that was evident in her tone. The boys turned around to look at him, Ben’s expression predictably stony while Poe still wore the ghost of a grin. They parted just enough that Luke could see Leia between them, one eyebrow cocked in a challenging way. “You didn’t rush to my bedside!”   
Color flooded his face. He hadn’t, and he was a complete coward. How many times had his sister hung over his bed after he’d nearly gotten them all killed? He scuttled forward, moving to the side of the bed opposite Poe and Ben. She couldn’t have been awake for more than an hour, but she’d already twisted his long hair back into her Alderaanian mourning braid. Still thinking of Han, even in the midst of all this. Maybe that was why Ben couldn’t look at her directly, even though one of her small hands was clutched in the two of his. He cast her frightened glances, searching her face and ducking his head in turn.  
“How are you feeling?”   
“Exactly like I took several blaster wounds to the chest at my age.” Leia smirked, and Dameron chuckled. “But better. I could feel you all for a few days before this. I knew I was going to make it back.” Her smile faded into a frown. “The boys were just telling me what happened. We need to talk.”  
Poe jumped up immediately, but Ben remained seated, looking at the wall and clutching his mother’s hand. Leia shook her trapped limb.  
“Ben. Go with Poe.” It was like watching someone age in reverse; Ben’s expression fell instantly into the glowering temper that had fueled his descent into Kylo Ren. The expression made Luke’s insides churn with a mixture of guilt and fear. Leia didn’t flinch.  
“Ben Solo Organa, RIGHT NOW.” She didn’t so much as blink when her son roughly pushed back his chair and marched towards the doors, hissing something unintelligible. Poe, clearly having been on the receiving end of several Leia scoldings during his time, was on his heels. Luke watched them go mournfully, wanting to put off this inevitable conversation for a just a bit longer.  
Leia turned to look at him, resting her chin in her hand. “So tell me, brother. Are you happy you were right?”  
Luke wasn’t quite ready to rise to her fighting bait just yet. “When have I ever been right about anything?”  
“You have me there.” Her teasing grin wavered. “All this time, I thought we would lose Ben. I never thought to lose Rey.”  
He nodded, feeling ancient again. “It’s been awful without you, Leia. I’m still not sure he’s going to pull out of it. That bond…”  
“I know.” She reached out and grabbed his hand. “They need you now. You can’t keep hiding. Help Poe. We need to get off this planet, go to the Outer Rim, and cut our losses. We still have allies.” Her eyes took on a bright, manic quality that he knew too well. Hope.  
“Leia, I’m not even sure what we’re up against at this point. Crait was a blow to them, but we barely got out of there—“  
“So send someone. You guys didn’t get all of my pilots killed, did you?” She rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. That wasn’t fair.”  
“No, it was.” Luke tried to smile. “Who could we possibly get that’s crazy enough to take an Outer Rim field trip?”  
She looked toward the door, raised her eyebrows, and then looked back at Luke meaningfully. His eyebrows collided when he realized what she was suggesting.   
“No way! They’ll never agree to it.”  
“I think they will. Send a group, have them keep an eye on him.”   
“And if he falls back in with Snoke?”  
“Not likely, unless you sell him out again.” The tension between them was absolute. Luke had often thought that his sister would never forgive him for Ben. But it was this, his betrayal of the resistance, which had finally fractured the relationship.   
“Leia, I’m sorry. If I could do it again…” He trailed off. What would he do? Kill teenage Ben in his bed? Lock Rey in a tower on Ach-To? No. Trying to keep the two of them apart had ultimately failed. Everyone lost, no matter how often he had replayed this in his head.   
“If you’re sorry, you’ll do this for me. Help them remember the hope we used to have.” Her doe eyes crinkled as she smiled. “You had so much hope. For Han. For our father. Even Mara…you weren’t always wrong.”  
Luke leaned forward, pressing his elbows onto the bed. “I’m going to try to talk to father again. I can do it this time.” He sighed. “And I’m going to help them.”  
“That’s the spirit, soldier.” Leia clapped him on the back, all business. “Good meeting.”  
He curled his lip. “All for you, princess.”  
She punched him.  
***********************************  
Dameron followed Kylo on the way back to their rooms, lagging slightly behind him. Several times, Kylo could literally hear him opening his mouth to speak and then deciding not to with a deep exhale. After the fourth time, he couldn’t take it anymore.  
“For kriff’s sake, spit it out, Dameron. What do you want!?”  
To his surprise, Dameron spoke without hesitation. “I want to talk about Rey.”  
Her name still felt like a punch to the gut. It was hard work not to cave inward. He resisted the urge to dig his knuckles into his old wound. “What about her,” he managed to grit out.  
“Now that General Organa is up, they’re going to have a plan soon. Plans that will need pilots to take them off-world. It might be a good time to…collect an asset.”  
He scoffed. “You can’t get to her.”  
“No, you can’t get to her. You can’t tell me she won’t sense you comin’ from light years away. You need me to help you.” Poe stopped walking, forcing Kylo to halt.  
“I could use anyone.”  
“Who else would help you?” The regarded each other stonily. Poe was much shorter than him, but he held his ground all the same.   
“I’ll do it myself.” He just started to walk again when Dameron’s kriffing droid rolled up and cut him off. “Get out of it,” he snapped.  
The BB unit didn’t pay him any attention, turning to display its front projector. Kylo watched in horror as a hologram of himself began to play, suspended in midair. He was sitting on the floor of his room, resting against the wall. Hologram Ren leaned forward, smiled, and whispered something into the empty air in front of him.  
“You’ve been spying on me,” he whispered.   
“It wasn’t all that enthralling, believe me. Who are you talking to, Ben?” Poe didn’t wait for an answer. “Do you think the Resistance is going to let you keep walking around if they find out you’re in contact with Snoke’s people? They’re certainly not going to let you near a ship.” He tapped BB8 on the head like a master with his dog, and the droid shut down the video. “And let’s not get started with the call I have on my communicator with First Order numbers all over it.”  
Kylo was quivering with rage. “You helped me make that call. You’d be implicated as well.”  
“I could say I was trying to see if you’d take the bait, and they’d believe me.” Poe rolled his eyes. “Look, I want to help her too. But you’re going to have to work with me. And I want something while we’re at it.”  
“You can kill me when she’s safe again.”  
Poe smiled. “Oh, no. I want General Hux.”  
Kylo gaped at him, feeling close to laughter. “There’s no way. And even if there was, you’re seriously mistaken if you think it would bother the Supreme Leader.”  
“I’m not interested in Snoke. But how many of the First Order actually look to him for guidance? It’s Hux. We need to punch a hole in their ideology. And the Grand Marshal, as intelligence has just made us aware, is the best target.”  
He tossed this around in his head, weighing Poe’s reasoning against his own knowledge. “It would make the others nervous. They’d see a weakness in the system, and know that they’re not entirely safe.” Reality set in. “But you’ll never get to him. We can’t board ship, and he won’t leave.”  
Poe shrugged. “So make him leave. Make him an offer he can’t refuse.”  
“You want me to offer him more resistance information? He won’t take it.”  
“No. Offer him you.”  
“Ah. You want me to turn myself in.” He chewed on his lip. “Interesting.”  
Poe was keen on the conversation now that he knew Kylo wasn’t going to erupt. “You wouldn’t really be surrendering, though. Have him meet you somewhere in the Far Reaches. We’d be around you the entire time.”  
“He’d bring a squad…”  
“Nothing a few well-placed bombs can’t take out. You know this guy; he’ll want to make the arrest himself. This would be a huge triumph for him right after his promotion.”  
“And Rey?”   
“While we’re distracting the entire Order, we’ll send Finn and Rose to get her.” Dameron rubbed his neck. “If she listens to anyone else, it’s gonna be Finn.”  
Jealousy twisted his gut again, but this time he was glad for it. “You’re right. We just need to know when she’ll be off the ship. Hux is supposed to be working on that right now.” Slowly, that statement clicked with something that Poe had said. He immediately broke into a run. The porg, which had taken to riding around in his shirt, fell onto the carpeted floor, looking dazed.  
“Ben, what are you doing?” Poe scooped up the porg and started after him.  
“If Hux is Grand Marshal now, someone has cut him a favor. There’s only one person who has the ear of the Supreme Leader right now. Which means—“  
“They’ve spoken, and she’s probably getting ready to leave the base.” Poe started running even harder, and tossed the frazzled porg to Ben. “The communicator is in my room. I’ll be there in five minutes.”  
Kylo tucked the porg back into his shirt, feeling hope for the first time in weeks. “Make it three.”


	11. An Accepted Offer

Rey had one more stop to make before her departure. Snoke’s immense throne room was one of her least favorite places on the ship, but she had one lingering question for the old master that warranted this final visit. General—no, Grand Marshal Hux walked quietly beside her, uncharacteristically silent. Maybe their earlier bargain seemed more real when he was in her presence; either way, she made him uncomfortable and that was just fine with her.   
The turbolift doors slid open. Snoke waited for them on his throne, resting his chin on his fingertips. Rey could immediately sense danger in the room. A sinister sort of anger was enveloping the Force around them. For one insane second, she nearly stepped in front of Hux to block him from Snoke’s line of vision. Apparently, her protective instincts really would kick in for anyone. She could almost picture Kylo rolling his eyes. No feeling today; he’d sealed off their connection good and tight. Snoke gave her a long, calculating look.  
“We’ve received a message I thought the both of you would find interesting.” Snoke glanced around at his Praetorian guards, most of whom stood sentinel at the outside edges of the room. With a quick gesture, he dismissed the two that stood at either side of his throne and they melted into the walls with their brothers. “Come with me.”  
This was intriguing. Rey followed Snoke quietly, Hux on her heels. They passed through a smaller set of doors before entering a set of chambers. Snoke sank into an ornate armchair, cringing slightly. It was obvious that his halting gait caused him pain, but rare for him to let it show in this way. More intriguing than Snoke’s sudden show of humanity was Hux. Where there had before been arrogance, Rey sensed fear so acute that it turned her own stomach. She turned very slightly, trying to gauge his expression. While his face remained calm, his gaze was focused on the far point of the wall and his shoulders were rising and falling more quickly than normal.  
Hesitantly, she pried her way into Hux’s mind.  
‘What is wrong with you?’  
“Rey!” She jumped. Hux gave no sign that he had heard her in his head. “As I was saying, earlier this evening I received this message, sent directly to me via a personal comm.”   
He tapped an unseen control panel and switched on an immense screen. It nearly took up the entirety of the far wall.   
“Hello, Supreme Leader.” Rey bit back a scream of frustration. Kylo—Ben—was sitting in a straight-backed chair on the screen, in a miscellaneous room. They had taken no chances of any detail of their setting being recognized. “I’m sure you haven’t forgotten me yet, but for the sake of the record and my kind friends here, allow me to state that my name is Kylo Ren, former enforcer of the First Order and your personal apprentice.” His hair had been braided back off his face, but he raised his hands to it out of habit anyway, pushing away an errant strand. He was wearing binders. That was wrong…Kylo had never been bound during their talks. Beside her, Hux gave a small cough. Did he too sense something was off?  
“I’ll make myself plain. My time with the Resistance has run out. In exchange for my life, I appeal directly to you, Supreme Leader. Let me come home.” He stopped for a moment to gaze coolly into the camera. “Forgive me for my actions, as you have undoubtedly pardoned the other…” He seemed to look at Rey then, and she had to remind herself that this was a recording. “Take me back into your service, and I will prove to you that I am the only one you need.” This time, Hux made an unmistakable scathing noise.  
“Before you decline my offer, please note that the Resistance stands to offer a gift for your cooperation.” Kylo smiled ruefully. “My surrender will come in the company of Luke Skywalker.”  
Hux’s head shot up. Rey took a steadying breath. All of this was wrong. And she thought she’d been the only one keeping secrets. The Supreme Leader continued to study the screen.  
“Why even bring him to the First Order?” Rey was disgusted. “Why not just kill Luke where he stands?”  
“Because if he does that, your Resistance pals will kill him.” Hux’s sneer had returned. “Willing as they might be to have Skywalker off their hands, I doubt their extremely flawed moral code allows for brutal murder.” He shoved his hands into his pockets. “At least not in plain sight.”  
“Silence!” Snoke tapped the controls again and the video continued, Kylo’s voice surrounding them.  
“This surrender comes with terms.” Rey swallowed. She’d been afraid of that. “If my life is threatened, the deal is off. I will surrender only to Grand Marshal Hux in a neutral location.” Hux’s eyebrows flicked upwards, but that was the only sign of surprise he gave at Kylo’s knowledge of his promotion. “In exchange for the surrender of myself and Skywalker, the Resistance requests that the criminal known as DJ be released into their custody.”  
That was enough for Rey. “Supreme Leader,” she burst out, “General Organa would never barter with other peoples’ lives. Something is wrong with this, see reason!” The video was paused again, and she forced herself to look away from Ben’s face.  
“Never barter with lives? Your precious princess deemed the lives of 400 Resistance scum more valuable than the thousands of souls on Star Killer base. A steep bet, but a trade all the same.”  
“A bet that should have fallen in your favor, Hux!” Rey noticed the man’s face darken at Snoke’s refusal to use his new title. “Look here.”  
The video picked back up. Rey rested her hands on her stomach wondering, for the first time, if the baby would have Ben’s wild black hair or his dark eyes. Maybe she’d carry the same darkness as well. Luke’s voice echoed in her memory:  
“Powerful light, powerful dark.” And this child had parents who had a bit of both…more than a bit. She touched the kyber crystal at her neck. Powerful was the right word.  
“I know what you found on Mustafar.” Rey felt her mouth drop open. Kylo continued. “I know that you don’t know what to do with it. I can help you.” He inclined his head towards the screen. “Master, please. I can do more for you than the scavenger can. Skywalker and I can read it.”  
“So he doesn’t intend for us to kill Skywalker, at least not right away.” Hux stopped talking as Snoke held up a withered hand. The message ended flatly.  
“You have two days to respond to this message. After that, the deal is forfeit.” Kylo licked his lips. “Let me prove to you that I am the one you need.” The screen flickered and went dark. Rey stood in shocked silence next to Hux, neither of them willing to voice their opinions. She was dying to return to her room and contact Ben, but that would have to wait.  
Snoke gazed into the empty space in front of them, nodding slightly. “Hux, you will grant their request. Let them pick the setting.”  
“Supreme Leader, you can’t be serious.”   
A dangerous amusement danced across Snoke’s face. Rey just managed to react before he lifted his arm, meaning that the table she’d Force-lifted took the brunt of Snoke’s lightening instead of Hux. He stumbled back several feet, looking at her in disbelief. The table clattered to the floor.  
“Grand Marshal, give us a minute.” Hux nearly fell backwards in his haste to get out the door. Rey sucked in her cheeks and sat down awkwardly on the table she’d destroyed. Kriff, she’d really messed up now. Snoke just looked at her.  
“You are so very interesting, youngling.” Rey kept her expression set, her temper rumbling just beneath the surface. Snoke grinned. “What madness is it to save someone that’s trying to murder your friends?”  
“It would have been an unnecessary waste.” There was no masking the irritation in her tone.   
“I wasn’t going to kill him.”   
“No. You’ve already done much worse, to make him into what you wanted.” This time she looked at the Supreme Leader head on. He still wore the ghost of a laugh, but his smile was gone.   
“This is where we disagree, young Rey. Monsters aren’t made, they’re born. Armitage Hux is an absolute madman with a lust for power. It’s not hard to exploit the weakness of a person who’s desperate to be at the top, no matter the cost.” Snoke looked towards the control panel from which they’d just viewed Kylo’s comm. “You think about Ben Solo and Kylo Ren as if they’re different people, but they’re not. Ben Solo was born a monster, and will always be one.”  
“That’s not true.” She pulled on the bond, but Ben didn’t answer.  
“Yes…it…is.” Snoke was agitated now, and rose to pace back and forth. “You can train a man to be a killer, but without the drive of bloodlust, he will never be good at it. Pride, anger, revenge…these are the virtues of a true monster. Kylo Ren, no matter how he fights the shadows, is one of these beasts. And so are you…I remember the rage that fueled you in the forest, and had you been brave enough to kill him then…” Snoke trailed off. “No matter. Despite your gentle hearts, the darkness surrounds both of you, just are surely as it will follow the creature in your womb!”  
She wrapped her trembling arms around her stomach. “Then we will have to agree to disagree.”  
The Supreme Leader laughed. “You’ll see my way of thinking in time, youngling. Now…you had a question for me in mind when you came here. Ask away.”  
Faced with actually asking her question, she found it hard to voice it. “You said…you said you’d help me find my parents. That they were still living.” She bit her lip, knowing that she sounded like a child. “Please.”  
Snoke rolled his disturbingly blue eyes. It seemed to Rey that a creature like him should sport a more sinister color, red or yellow like the monsters in children’s stories. “Was it not enough to find your grandfather?”  
“He doesn’t know…” She stopped herself, trying to reign in her anger. “He can’t tell me anything.” Her chin wobbled on the last word.  
“Ah, so he doesn’t want to. Interesting.” He caught Rey’s trembling chin in his hand, and she had to force herself not to flinch away from him. “I’m cruel, but not unreasonable, Rey. When you return from Jakku, I’ll tell you everything.” He released her chin and moved towards his chair. “But I daresay you’ll find some information there. Send the idiot back to me.”  
Tears of rage pooled in her eyes, but she had one more thought to share. “That presence…it’s stronger now. Have you pinpointed it yet?”  
“No, I have not.” Snoke gazed into the distance again, seeing things she couldn’t. “Visions are a foolish man’s pursuit, but I keep hoping to catch a glimpse of this new rival.”  
“They’re strong but…their powers do not come close to yours.”  
“Mmm,” Snoke agreed, his gaze unfocused. “Or yours, or Kylo Ren’s. Which makes the boldness with which they’ve displayed themselves even more perplexing. If we can feel this person, they can certainly sense us.”  
“Shall we hunt them?” Anything to work off this pent up anger.  
“Not yet, youngling. Not yet.” Snoke managed to focus his gaze. “Send Hux to me.”


	12. The Chiss and the Code Breaker

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy first day of spring! It decided to snow a foot here, so I could finally write. Working for a college has its perks-adult snow days!   
> Enjoy and may the Force be with you, always.

DJ had made his living out of exploiting suckers. Luckily for him, the galaxy never ceased offering him a never-ending supply of those.  
He could sense the unrest from the rest of the group that had been gathered to help the Jedi girl. There was a general sense of ill use and suspicion, and no one wanted to work together. That was fine with him; playing nice with others had never been his forte. There was a nice scar on his cheek that reminded him of that.  
Or maybe that was from a disgruntled lover. It was hard to keep track.  
The stormtroopers assigned to his detail were bored. DJ turned the box given to him by the girl over in his hand, humming obnoxiously to himself. The female trooper turned her head towards him and he smiled and continued to hum louder. They’d been waiting a long time to leave…something had to have gone wrong.   
All three of them jumped when the doors slid open and the girl came back in, looking murderous. Good. People were much more likely to do something stupid when they were angry. The troopers jumped to their feet. DJ smiled and reclined further in his seat. Rey looked at them all like she was mildly surprised to find them there.  
“Oh. Um…leave. Just you two.” She waved her hand vaguely in their direction. “There’s going to be a little bit of a delay.”   
“No offense, sweetheart, but there’s already been a b-b-bit of a delay. What have you been doing, coiffing your buns?” Rey shot him a dark look, obviously catching his lewd meaning. He grinned wider.   
“You two can go, it’s okay. Leave him over there.” Rey used two fingers to point at DJ. “He’s not going to get anywhere.” She hovered awkwardly for a minute, then disappeared through a second set of doors.   
“You heard her, scout. See you later.” DJ clapped the male stormtrooper on his back. This turned out to be a mistake, as the irritated soldier clapped binders around his wrists before he and his partner left. He merrily waved them out the door with the cuffs.  
The girl still hadn’t come back out of her room yet, and that was exactly what he wanted. Still humming to himself, he reached down into his boot and pulled out a small piece of a metal. He’d spent a long time developing his keys, but he’d found it shockingly easy to make this new one. Amazing what these Order idiots would leave lying around. He slid the coder into the binder lock, and they opened up for him like daisies.   
The doors were still closed. DJ knelt down by the seam, prodding it with his fingers. He reached behind his ear and pulled out a smaller piece of metal, and slid it under the door. It only gave a bit of resistance, and he knew immediately it was going to work. Muffled voices filled his ears, and now he could hear exactly what was going on in the next room.   
The girl was talking to someone.  
“I can’t do it anymore, grandfather. The more I try the harder it gets….OF COURSE I know it’s a weakness…all of my commune training came from Kylo, and I feel like he’s doing this, blocking me from it through the bond…”  
Interesting. DJ remembered the conversation about the bond between Rey and Kylo Ren. It had been him that suggested to General Organa that they let the thing strengthen. Well, it seemed to have certainly done that. But if she wasn’t talking to Ren now…  
“I was able commune with Lord Vader before….of course I didn’t ask him then, I didn’t know…” Rey paused, and it seemed like someone was talking to her. Why couldn’t he hear them?  
“I need someone to teach me. I can barely hear you now. I need…I need Kylo. Luke. Someone.” The girl’s voice broke. “Snoke doesn’t help me. I get the feeling he wants me to fail, and now with Ben’s offer…” She didn’t finish, or he couldn’t hear it. “This presence we all feel. I think I know who it is.” Another beat of silence. “I can’t use Ben. He’ll feel the baby, can’t you feel her?”  
DJ barely got back to his feet as the door slid across the runner and Rey glared up at him.  
“You must have a death wish, nerf herder.” He didn’t get to open his mouth before she magicked him back into the chair he’d recently vacated. “What did you hear?”  
“Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart. Take it easy.” The girl’s expression didn’t falter and he felt a little uneasy. There was a time when their positions had been reversed, and he hadn’t shown her any mercy. Maybe now she’d settle the score.  
It was worse than that. Rey placed her hand by his head and his mind broke open like an egg, showing her everything she wanted. It was a panic inducing feeling, the presence of someone else in your private thoughts. It was gone quickly. The girl was breathing hard, eyes fluttering. Whatever she was doing, it was costing her a lot.  
“Whoa, kid.” DJ still felt weak and blindsided, but he managed to push himself back into a sitting position. “Sit down and we’ll talk. You don’t look so good.”  
Rey nodded and swung a chair around the side of the table to sit in front of him. DJ braced himself for the next mental attack. It didn’t come.  
“So,” the girl said, looking at him steadily. “Knowing what you know…”  
“I’m not trying to make a b-b-bargain, sweetheart. I just want out.”  
“That’s not possible. Like it or not, you joined, DJ.” A hint of a smile appeared on her face. “You remind me of someone else I knew that didn’t want a part in this.” The smile died. “He was incomparably braver, though.”  
“Bravery gets people killed, sweetheart.” His eyes dropped down. “Gotta say, I didn’t see that coming.” She rested her hand on her stomach, and it amazed him that he hadn’t noticed it before. “Kriff.”  
“I feel the same way.” Rey moved her hands to the arms of her chair. “Kylo Ren has just offered terms of surrender to the Order, assuming they’ll offer him sanctuary and pardon.”  
“Good for you. Family reunion,” he said in reference to her stomach. She didn’t deny it. “What’s that go to do with me?”  
“The Resistance requested that we surrender you for Luke Skywalker.”  
“Oh.” DJ raised his eyebrows. That was new. Although with Holdo dead, it might be preferable to his position here. It’s easier to slip off a planet base than to escape this fortress.   
“They can’t have you. I need you.”  
“Not to piss you off, but I think that I have information to leverage now that I could use to go if I want t-t-to.”  
“You do understand that I could kill you now.” The girl was playing with the laser sword she wore on her hip. Odd…he’d heard rumors she’d lost it on Crait.  
“You don’t have the stomach for it, kid. Now, tell me what you’ve got that’s better than the Resistance.”  
“We can leave right now and I’ll let you go when we’re done.” DJ looked at her, this scavenger girl who’d brought the galaxy to its knees and bested the Jedi Killer. There was no misgiving in her hazel eyes, no flicker of untrustworthiness. For the first time in his life, he knew whose side he wanted to be on.  
For the time being.  
“I’m gonna regret this, but let’s go.” He paused. “But if Ren comes in and starts lopping heads off, I’m out. Same goes for old man Snoke.”  
“Fair enough,” Rey said, almost smiling. She tapped her comm. “Mitaka, let’s get ready to do this.”  
“Prepared in your escape pod bay. Watch the cameras by your main doors.” Mitaka’s voice was steady and comforting. The hacker and scavenger made their way to the ship, DJ clutching the box he’d been working on for weeks. As they got closer, Rey’s steps became slower.  
“Um, no rush, sweetheart, but if we’re gonna get out of here, we need to move.”  
Rey entered the bay with her eyes narrowed. “Just something…feels off.”  
Mitaka was waiting for them when they boarded the ship, his eyes fluttering between the two of them. He seemed unwilling to talk in front of DJ, who rolled his eyes and turned around.  
“What is it?”  
“Please don’t be angry, Rey, but he insisted.”  
“He?” DJ scrambled to keep up as the girl shoved past Mitaka into the bay of the ship. Besides their two assigned pilots, a third person was sitting in one of the high-backed chairs. Its occupant spun slowly to face them.  
“Oh, don’t be angry dear.” Hux was sitting casually, with one ankle resting on his thigh. The man’s smile looked unnatural and predatory. “I can’t let you go alone.”  
“Get off my ship, Hux. I gave you everything you wanted.” DJ backed up, hoping to avoid blood spatter if this came to blows.   
“Not everything.” His face was dangerous. “If you think I’m going to let you ruin everything I worked for…”  
“You worked for nothing. Everything you have was built on the backs of oppressed people…”  
Hux waved his hand. “I don’t expect you to understand. But I want him, and I want to come to Jakku with you.”  
DJ twiddled his thumbs anxiously, thinking longingly of alcohol. How long had it been since he had a good drink? Now seemed as good a time as any—he drifted towards the belly of the ship until the girl’s next words made him stop.  
“You can’t have him.”  
Hux made a motion to the female pilot, who sealed the ship and began to prepare to make a jump. “I don’t care about that filthy hacker.”   
“Ouch,” DJ said sarcastically.   
“I want Ren.”  
There was a long few minutes of silence as the ship made the jump into hyperspace. Finally, someone broke it.  
“Why?”  
It wasn’t Rey who had spoken. DJ turned.  
It was the pilot. The Chiss. LeHuse, he remembered.  
Rey frowned at him. “Who are you?”  
*********************************************************************************************************  
“I thought I’d find you here.” Poldin LeHuse had only been a pilot, but his actions at Star Killer base had resulted in a recent promotion, giving him access codes to some of the more restricted areas aboard ship. It didn’t seem like much in exchange for their devastating loss. Poldin had been up more nights than he could count, going over everything that could have gone differently and reworking strategies. He was a pilot, for star’s sake. They had been the first and last line of defense when the Resistance attacked.  
And they had failed.  
Still, Poldin’s actions had been deemed heroic enough for someone in the ranks to promote him. It was disgusting, in the wake of all that death, for anyone to benefit from it. All he wanted now was to destroy the Resistance. But the Order seemed unseated, completely shaken by the Star Killer defeat. No one was doing anything, although he’d heard rumors that they had managed to find the location of the rebel base.  
They needed a leader. A real leader, not an anonymous force that hid in the shadows.  
“You shouldn’t have come here.” The man’s voice was terrifying, a low growl that placed pain and menace on every syllable.   
Poldin wasn’t discouraged. Humans as a race were fickle creatures. Anger and aggression didn’t frighten him, not even when coming from the Master of the Knights of Ren.  
“There were rumors that you were killed.”  
“Hmm.” Kylo was sitting with his back to him, head bowed. “Not quite.”  
“All due respect, sir—”  
“Don’t.” Kylo held up his hand, gloved, even though he was alone in his chambers. “Just say what you mean to say without the fake respect.”  
“Fine.” Poldin didn’t like to mince words anyway. “You have been hiding in here, brooding for days, while I have been mourning my men. Your men. There are rumors that you…”  
“That I what, Poldin?” The word jerked up on the end, a subtle warning.   
“That you were bested by the scavenger girl. The prisoner you took from Jakku.”  
Kylo didn’t move or respond, except to hang his head. Poldin couldn’t believe it—he wouldn’t believe it. “Kylo?”  
His leader stood stiffly, like something in his core was hurt. Poldin’s eyes widened as he took in Ren’s feral expression, and the massive wound that snaked up the right side of his face. The cut was open and wicked, as though it were fresh, offset only by a massive black eye. Judging by the yellowing tinge of the bruising, the injury was older than it looked.   
“Kriff, Ren, why don’t you go and get bacta put on that?”   
“I was told not to.”   
“But you’ve been injured. There’s no logic behind that at…ah.” Kylo had given him a meaningful, annoyed stare. “This is why you’ve been hiding.”  
“Be assured that I’m being punished. Congratulations on your promotion though.”  
“Kriff the promotion.” Poldin put his arms behind his back and stood beside Kylo. “Tell me what happened.”  
In the guts of the First Order stronghold, Kylo told Poldin about Skywalker, the Force, and a girl. A scavenger from nowhere who had mysterious abilities. An orphan. No one. But someone who had left Ren defeated and bleeding in the snow all the same.   
“The best of warriors can be defeated. You were injured.” Kylo didn’t respond to this. “And we will have our revenge. We’ll kill the scavenger.”  
“Rey,” Kylo said. Something complicated happened on his face; as a Chiss, Poldin wasn’t equipped to decipher the emotional range of humans. He let it pass.  
“Rey,” Poldin agreed.  
On his way out that evening, Poldin had promised himself one more thing.  
“And we will have the Supreme Leader we deserve.”


	13. A New Hope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *A note on Ben/Ren: I do not believe in the separation of Ben Solo and Kylo Ren. People are not good OR evil, light OR dark. So throughout this story, and most of my others, you'll see me bounce between the names. Often that depends on how Kylo or the narrator is viewing him at that very moment. It wouldn't make sense for Rey to call him "Kylo" in a future peaceful family AU, just as it would be wrong for Finn to slap him on the back and call him "Ben" in a story like this one. And when I'm writing from Ren's perspective, I still find his internal struggle so tremulous that he's not even sure who he is.
> 
> My apologies for the delay between chapters, friends. I realized how long it had been since I wrote when someone complained about the time between updates on one of my other stories in a Facebook group the other day (I am not a self-promoter, so I don't reveal myself to be the author there. I like my fanfic and private life nice and separate, but hey, I can see people talking about my stuff! Ha.). But I've really no excuse except that when I'm doing a lot of actual writing work (I freelance) I tend to read more than write in my spare time to blow off steam.  
> That or I've been rearranging the two new sets of reylo figures I got in the last few weeks over and over again like the trash I am.  
> You decide.  
> May the Force be with you!

Kylo hesitated in the doorway of his mother’s room, uncertain if he wanted to proceed. They were all waiting on him, eager to start what would hopefully be a great victory for the resistance. Their excitement irritated him. He just wanted Rey back, and these people were gambling lives and time to put forth their idea of a “greater good.” Inside of him, something dark slithered in his veins. Once he had Rey again, he would show the galaxy a greater good. His fist curled.  
“Ben?”  
Ben. He was Ben here, no matter what he felt to the contrary. His mother turned as he stepped into the room, abandoning the trunk she’d been rifling through.  
“We’re getting ready to leave,” he said by way of greeting. Despite his time by her bedside, Ben still felt the infuriating mixture of shame and longing that his mother brought out of him, and it was made all the worse when she could pierce him with her huge dark eyes.  
“Yes, I know. I’m in charge around here, you might have heard.” Her eyes crinkled mischievously. For a moment, he could remember her pretending not to see him when he hid as a child, her eyes alight with humor within the crinkles.  
‘Where are you, Ben? What will I do without my brave pilot?’ He’d pressed his fist against his mouth to muffle his giggles. His mother was so silly!  
He shook away the memory. “Yes, I think I’ve noticed.”  
Leia patted the bedspread. “Come sit.” She shifted so Ben could settle himself beside her, and he took care to leave inches between them. His mother leaned forward and opened the trunk she’d been digging in when he arrived. Ben leaned in curiously. It was a jumble of fabrics, very old but obviously rich, some of them heavy or incrusted with jewels. Ben raised his eyebrows.  
“Old things are funny, aren’t they? In most respects, it’s all junk, but everything has a history. A power to move people.” Leia sighed. “My memory box from Alderaan nearly destroyed everything we worked for after the war when it revealed the truth about my parents.” Ben didn’t meet her eyes—they both knew that day had been the beginning of his downfall. “It took a long time for that particular piece of history to settle. But when it did, Luke and I went looking for different things.” She tapped the trunk.  
“How did you recover anything from Alderaan?”  
“I didn’t.” His mother’s face fell slightly. “The only memories I have of Alderaan are in the small artifacts of my home people managed to get to me.” She lifted a white dress from the trunk, letting it unfold to the floor. Kylo reached out and grabbed the long sleeve. It shimmered with a story passed down so many times it felt like his own memory.  
‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope.’  
“So many people wanted to know more about the man who became Darth Vader that very few looked into the woman that loved him. Maybe I was bitter at my father, maybe it was because I’m a woman myself, but I wanted to know more about my mother.”  
“Queen Amidala.”  
“Padme Amidala. Queen. Senator. A fierce warrior with a brave heart.” Now Leia reached deeper into the trunk and pulled out a set of heavy red robes. “Someone who believed in hope and what is right.”   
Ben was amazed. “This was hers?”  
“Yes. And so was this.” Leia placed a much plainer, lighter outfit in his lap, more fit for a handmaiden than a queen. “I imagine she was wearing something similar to this when she met Anakin Skywalker and was introduced to the horrors of slavery. As a young queen, she spent much of her time campaigning against the customs of indenture and human bondage.”  
Kylo remembered his rage when he’d seen what Unkar Plutt was offering for Rey’s bounty.  
“She was loved, revered even, and one of the most respected senators our history. So I can only imagine how much she must have loved my father to risk all of that.” Once more, Leia’s hand dipped into the trunk. This time, she used both hands to lift the object from the trunk.  
It was a bridal headpiece, white and heavy with cream colored appliques covering the hood. Delicate teardrop jewels lined the lace edge that would have framed Padme’s face and continued down the length of the veil. It was priceless, beautiful, and heartbreaking, considering what had followed.  
“I had hoped to give all of this to my daughter someday, but that’s not how it worked out.” Leia smiled wistfully. “But there is someone else I could give it to.”  
Ben felt a flush creep up his neck. “That’s not possible, mother. And even if it was, who would want to carry on the legacy of a woman who was murdered by her lover?”  
“She wasn’t murdered. He injured her grievously, but some souls aren’t meant to recover from heartbreak.” Ben looked at his mother’s haunted face, and thought privately that she hadn’t inherited her mother’s gentle constitution. “She believed in him with her last dying breath. And she was right.”  
“Rey believed in me too, and I drained her of everything good and light about her.” He shook his head. “She tried with me and failed, mother.”  
“Hmm.” Leia used the Force to detach his lightsaber from his belt and ignite it. The white blade still crackled, but in the absence of the red color caused by a bleeding crystal, it seemed more stable somehow. “Something has changed you so much that you could purify your kyber.”  
The saber disengaged as he called it back to his hands. “Grief.”  
“I forget,” his mother said quietly, “that I have had much longer to mourn your brother’s death than you have.”  
Ben took a steadying breath. “I kept him safe for so long. He didn’t deserve any of what happened to him.” He blinked away tears. “Everything about him was like you and my grandmother, while I…I’m just like him.” The legacy of Darth Vader, which he had worn for so long like a crown, now hung over him like a death shroud. Even now, he could feel the shudder in his bones that called to the Dark side.   
“He’s gone.” Leia was standing now, although she was so short she barely towered over him as he sat. “Vader is gone, your brother is gone, Han is gone.” She paused. “You will always be my son, and I will always love you, but there’s something we will never get back because of your father.”   
Kylo shook his head.  
“I know you think what you’re doing is right, but consider the life of a warlord. You can bring the very galaxy to its knees and still not have what you want, Ben.” She crossed her arms. “And I will fight you to the ends of the universe to defend what I believe in.”  
“Why let me go, if that’s what you think I’ll be doing?”  
She smiled. “Because I believe you are your father’s son. And I have hope.” She kissed Ben’s forehead and pressed the veil into his hands. “Consider having faith that someone else might believe the same thing.” Leia turned and closed the trunk.  
“My father made the wrong choice, Ben. If you don’t, I think both you and Rey may find answers on Naboo. I think it will feel more like home than anywhere you’ve been before.”  
************************************************************************************************************************************  
“Thanks for joining us,” Paige Tico muttered as Kylo boarded the ship. The only set of eyes that didn’t glare in his direction were Poe’s. Luke had his back to him, his fake hand resting on R2-D2’s main cylinder.   
“Did you say your goodbyes,” Poe asked lightly.   
Ben felt the stones of the veil pressing against his ribs where he’d tucked it. “I think I did.”


	14. Ghost Made Flesh

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Every so often, I write a chapter that I am SUPER excited about.  
> This is one of them.  
> May the Force be with you.

Rey was running out of time to decide. There was an uneasy feeling in her stomach that reminded her strongly of being the first scavenger to the scene of a crash site. She’d ended up in that exact situation when she was fifteen. After picking through the still smoking satellite, she’d looked up from loading her bag to find herself surrounded by several larger, older scavengers. Needless to say, there had been a fight, but she’d come out of it with her things, even if it was a little worse for wear.  
She wished she felt as confident in this situation. Unwilling to remand control to any one person, she, Hux, and the Chiss were seated uncomfortably around the bolted-down table. The Chiss, Poldin, didn’t make eye contact with any of them, preferring to glare sullenly into the distance. Rey could see why he would have made a good friend for Kylo. But for Ben Solo? Probably not so much. Hux, on the other hand, looked as gleeful as she had ever seen him. The corners of his mouth kept twitching.  
Annoyed, Rey spun her chair around so we didn’t have to look at him. DJ was sprawled against the hull, looking completely peaceful. She shot him a withering look; he shrugged and lifted a bottle towards her in a mock toast.   
“It would appear that we are putting off an inevitable discussion,” Poldin said. Rey jumped, feeling guilty. She had been imagining the look on Hux’s face if she were to drag a piece of DJ’s filthy clothing across his white uniform. It was actually quite the pleasant thing to dwell on.  
“Discussion? There is no discussion. The lady is going to Jakku, you are going with her, and I will return with Ren in my custody.” Hux put his datapad down with more force than necessary.  
“And what are we to do for a ship when you leave with the one we are on now?” Rey let her voice stay light, knowing that this answer would tell her a lot.  
“I’ll send one for you when you’re ready to return,” Hux said dismissively.  
Poldin snorted. “You’re going to leave us on a desert planet with no ship?”  
“Ah, one question.” DJ stood up, swaying a little. “How am I going to g-g-get off this planet without a ship? I was promised safety.”  
Hux threw up a hand. “You are the least of my concern…actually, why are you here? Go away.”  
“Is there a problem back there?” Kaista’s tone was friendly, but Rey sensed that her loyalties were with Poldin, despite their apparent dislike of each other.  
“No,” Hux barked. “We are sticking to the plan that the Supreme Leader has laid out for us, and I’ll even neglect to mention that you tried to skip out early,” he hissed at Rey. “Understood?”  
She smiled. “Understood.”  
In an instant, the three of them were on their feet. There was the resounding crackle as she engaged her lightsaber, holding it in front of her so that either end pointed at Poldin or Hux. The Chiss had pulled matching blasters, and Hux was leveling a blaster and a long, lethal looking blade at each of them in return. DJ cursed and slid back down the wall, moving out of sight.  
“You’re a coward,” Rey said, wondering why that even surprised her at this point.  
“No, I’m just not an idiot, s-s-sweetheart.” He ran for the rear of the ship where, Rey expected, he’d wait to see who would survive this for him to kiss up to.  
“LeHuse?” Kaista again, her voice strangely high pitched. There was an irritating noise coming from the cockpit, making the tense situation even worse.  
“It looks like we do have a problem,” Poldin said genially, never once lowering his weapons.  
“Grand Marshal, we have an issue--” More panic now. Rey couldn’t focus because of the racket the ship was making. Something had to be broken.  
“Shut up, girl,” Hux roared.  
The noise permeated Rey’s mind just in time, and she flung herself to the floor as the beeping reached a frenzied pace. Right before the impact, she heard Kylo’s panic through the bond.  
 _No, no, you’re not supposed to be there!_  
There was white light, and then nothing.  
**************************************************************************  
Something sticky was coating her face. She didn’t like it. Rey rubbed her cheek, and it came away sticky too. Huffing, she held it up in front of her. It was dripping with blood. She touched her cheek again. “Ow!”  
“Rey…REY! I found her!” Found her? Had she gone somewhere? She struggled to make sense of the hazy smoke that filled the air, and more beeping. More beeping…something had been beeping before. A figure crouched over her. “Rey, can you hear me?”  
“Finn?” She giggled. “You look funny.” Her friend’s face was covered with an odd mask, and it hissed rhythmically. She prodded it with her fingers, leaving smears of blood. “What’s it for?”  
“Oh, kriff,” Finn muttered. He slapped something over her nose and mouth, making her shriek and kick. “Hey! I FOUND her. Poe! Ren! She’s been knocked loopy, I need help!” Finn was holding her shoulders firmly against the floor, not letting her up. The mask, she realized, was a breathing apparatus. A few lungfuls of good, clean air made their way in.   
“Finn!” She sat up and hugged him. “What happened?”  
“We fired on you guys, but we thought you’d be on another ship. Rose managed to hack through the shields on this thing. Ren realized you were here too late and just managed to shift the missile—“  
“Ben is here?” She pushed unsteadily to her feet. “No, no…he’s got to go. We’ve got to go!”  
“Rey! Sit down, you’re hurt. You’re…” His eyes grew wide. “Ren! Poe!”  
“Don’t you know, kid, not to s-s-scream on a battlefield?” A blaster bolt caught Finn under his arm, directly in the chest. Rey screamed, or tried to. The breathing apparatus was trying to regular her oxygen intake. “Oh, relax sweetheart. I just stunned him.” He bent over Finn and unclipped a mask from his belt. “Much better.”  
“Why would you do that?” She felt heavy again. Blood was still oozing from her head. “He can help us get away.”  
“Right, right. But I see a business opportunity in the making.” He grinned at her, and raised the blaster. The bolt stopped midair, quivering, just as the bond snapped tight between her and—  
“Get away from her.” Kylo stepped around Finn’s unconscious body and knelt by Rey. His face went white as he looked at her. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”  
“Ben!” She managed to push Hux away from them just as he swung his weapon, meaning he barely grazed Ben’s shoulder. Like it was nothing, Ben was on his feet and hauling her up with him. Rey wanted to tell him to be careful, that something felt wrong, but she couldn’t. There was a crackle as he engaged his lightsaber. His lightsaber? The hilt looked the same, but this one was brilliantly, blindingly white.  
“You purified your crystal?”  
“Now is not the time,” Kylo muttered into her hair. He held the saber in front of them, breathing heavily. To her amazement, he even angled them so they were standing slightly in front of Finn.   
“Don’t be stupid, Ren. Leave the girl, come with me, and you can have everything you ever wanted. Think about it.” Hux didn’t lower his blaster, and he twirled the blade between his dominant fingers. For a second, she was afraid his grip had slackened, but then it doubled, squeezing her. Too hard, she wanted to say. Something is wrong. She slapped her hand against his thigh.  
“Ben…”  
“Your choice. Unless you’d rather stand here and watch her die of blood loss, at which point I’ll take you back to the Supreme Leader in disgrace.” Hux’s nasty grin became fixed, like something had just occurred to him. Without the slightest change in expression, he toppled forward and didn’t move again.  
Luke stepped out from behind him. “You’re right, Ben. That really does work well.” He mimed whacking someone in the head with his lightsaber hilt and hopped over Hux’s crumpled form. Rey felt Ben nearly wilt with relief.  
“I didn’t know how I was going to hold her and fight him too,” he muttered. He disengaged his saber and lifted her into his arms. “Let’s go.” Rey felt sick, like something was twisting inside her.   
“Ben?”  
“It’s okay now. You can be mad at me on the safe ship.” Cockiness cut into his tone, a touch of his old self that relieved her. She clawed at her mask and threw it.  
“No, Ben…” She leaned over his arm and vomited on the floor. He cursed and stepped away from the mess.   
“We’ve got to get her out of here, Luke. Too much smoke, not enough oxygen…the Order will know this ship got hit soon enough. Let’s take our people and go.”  
“Ben, something is really wrong…” Her vision was spotty, but it wasn’t just inside that something was trouble her. There was a disturbance, something in the Force…  
Ben felt it as she did, and turned his head towards the front of the ship. A masked figure stepped through the busted side doors, taking in the surroundings and motionless bodies on the floor. Even through the pain of whatever was happening in her body, Rey suddenly felt excited. She knew this person. It was the unknown power in the Force they’d been tracking.  
The figure’s head stopped and rested on the three of them. Nobody seemed to be breathing. It turned to Kaista who, Rey was relieved to see, had apparently survived the impact.  
“Can you copilot a ship,” the figure asked. Kaista nodded, mute with terror. Clearly they hadn’t prepared her for this in the academy.  
“Great. Put this on.” It tossed an elaborate gas mask at the pilot, who slapped it over her face without question. The stranger produced three metal balls, which they twirled in their hand. It was an unnatural motion, one that couldn’t be accomplished without the Force. They began to hiss and smoke, and the figure tossed them into the hull of the ship.  
“No,” Luke breathed. “Ben, it’s gas...” He started coughing. “The masks won’t filter it.” He fell with a dull thud.  
“Ben,” Rey said urgently. She grabbed his face with both of her bloody hands. “Ben, the baby.”  
They were sinking into the floor now, or that’s what it felt like. Ben’s head nodded forward.  
“The baby?” His hand flew to her stomach. He smiled, and it was the purest thing she’d ever seen him do. “Our baby.” The gas overcame him, and his eyes rolled back in his head.   
Rey was just clinging to the smallest vestige of consciousness when the figure stepped over her. She tried to turn her chest forward to protect Ben, but her muscles wouldn’t respond. This person was female, Rey realized. Desperately, she caught the person’s ankle with a twitching hand.  
“Help me.”


	15. Someone Comes Home

Luke woke up alone. It was hot, a kind of muggy and oppressive heat that he wasn’t used to anymore, not after the crisp air on Ahch-To. He kicked off the blankets covering him, feeling suffocated. It took him a minute to remember the ship rescue, the gas, and the figure that had outsmarted them all. A figure strong in the Force…  
He sat up and took stock of the room, his heart beating wildly. If this person was holding him prisoner, they were certainly doing it comfortably. The bed he was sitting in was small but soft, and the walls were made of some rough, unrecognizable wood with a cheery orange sheen. The heat was evidentially pouring in from a set of doors someone had left slightly open. Luke could see a balcony, also made of the strange orange wood, through the gap. Wherever he was, he was up high.  
Standing, he walked to the double doors and pushed them outwards. His immediate impression was of Endor—the planet was lush and overwhelmingly green, with huge trees that could swallow a ship. Judging by the sizes of the branches he could see, they were pretty high up. But it wasn’t Endor. The plant life was wilder, the wood spongier. Colors from plants and small rat-like creatures assaulted the eye.  
“There you are. Your sensors went off, and she was afraid you’d try to scale down the side.” The First Order pilot, the one that had told their abductor that she would copilot for them, was approaching from an adjoining balcony. Luke looked back and realized that his room only had balcony doors. Apparently every room was built into the tree and connected via the balcony walks. Interesting.  
“She?” After being teased about his bright inquisitiveness for so many years by Han, Luke had generally tried to avoid what Leia had affectionately termed “parrot questions” but for some things, and exception had to be made.  
“Yep.” The pilot was almost a full balcony ahead of him now, and he hurried to keep up.  
“Listen kid, you need to tell me what we’re up against here. I can help you, but you gotta tell me—“  
“Up against?” The girl snorted. “We’re not up against anybody. Well, besides the entirety of the First Order, and possibly the Resistance, but how will they know we didn’t all just die in space?”  
Luke opened and shut his mouth, thinking of Leia. What would she think, when no one answered the status checks on the ship they’d left behind. Was R2 okay? The girl pushed open a set of balcony doors and disappeared through them. Without any better options, Luke followed.  
This room was larger and much cooler than the one he’d woken up in. After the brightness of the jungle he had to blink several times to make his eyes adjust to the dimness. When he did, he zeroed in on the masked figure, who was bent over something on the floor, tinkering with it. The person stood, and was once again the nightmare creature from the ship. The droid it had been working on beeped happily.  
“R2!” Luke’s tone of voice was partly betrayal, but mostly astonishment. Why would a random bounty hunter—if that’s what this was—go back for his droid? The ship they’d vacated clearly didn’t have much going for it that would have make it look attractive to pirates.  
“Luke Skywalker.” The kidnapper walked toward him and crossed its arms. “It figures you’d be the first one up. Even for an old man.”  
He narrowed his eyes. “Do I know you?”  
The figure chuckled, then raised its hands and removed the helmet.  
Green eyes, with more lines around them than the last time he’d seen them, but still large and expressive. The challenging set of the mouth, nose just slightly lifted in an aristocratic way. The person’s brilliantly red hair was the exact color he remembered it being, although it was now cut bluntly above the shoulders. Luke had spoken with the dead before, but he’d never imagined this.  
“Mara,” he breathed.  
******************************************************************************************  
After the gas, Kylo woke up on the floor. It wasn’t the floor he’d collapsed on, though, but a strange wooden one he’d never seen before. Looking up, he realized it was because whatever idiot had put him here hadn’t accounted for his size or his nightmares. One toss too many, and he’d flopped onto the ground like a newborn fathier.   
His head was pounding, but he managed to pull himself back up on the bed. Beside him, Rey lay in a bed identical to his own. He scrambled over to her, hands fluttering uncertainly over her body. She was hooked to tubes and some sort of primitive intravenous system that was pumping fluids into her system. And above that…  
Kylo stared at the screen uncomprehendingly. A jagged blue line measured Rey’s heart rate, which, he was relieved to see, was strong and steady. Beneath that, two smaller green lines jumped, almost in tandem. He pressed his fingers to the screen and it beeped at him in a scolding way.  
Two. _Two_ green lines.  
He dropped his hands to Rey’s stomach, trying to be gentle. The Force shifted around him. Casting her another anxious look, he dropped his ear to her rounded belly. He was like her, Kylo could feel it, pure and stubborn and brave. And…and she…  
There was a darkness around his daughter, entirely composed of will and wit. He could sense her strength even more strongly than the boy’s. With a thrill of fear, Kylo realized that Rey had been with Snoke all this time, and that he would have been able to sense this as well. Is this what he’d been doing? Bating Rey with the promise of answers, while waiting to steal their children?  
 _I’ve watched over you for a long time, Ben. I can teach you. I have loved you._ Snoke’s insidious voice, as familiar to him as his own, had dogged him since childhood. It would be so easy for him to do it again.  
“Ben?” Rey’s fingers trailed through his hair. “I’d ask what you were doing down there, but I guess I know.” She pushed herself up in the bed. “She’s perfect, isn’t she? Can you feel her?”  
“Rey…”  
“Oh, I’m thirsty. Can you hand me that?” She stretched her arm towards a water bottle beside them. Kylo picked it up and tilted it towards her lips. “I guess you’ve messed everything up good and proper now. How long do we have until they swoop down on us?”  
“I don’t even know where we’re at, I haven’t seen anyone. Listen…”  
“There was a lady, Ben. I recognized her. The person who took us.” Rey look around like their captor might pop out of a closet. “I need to talk to her.”  
“Rey, we’re having twins.”  
“…like, right away. Snoke will be on our tails, you’re such an idiot, and what happened to Hux…what?”   
“Twins.” He held up two fingers and pointed at the monitor. “One, two.”  
She looked at the screen and shook her head. “No. One. A girl.”  
“There’s a girl. And a boy.” He studied her face, which crumpled like she was about to cry.  
“But…but I only felt the girl.” She rubbed her arms anxiously, and he realized she felt bad for not sensing the second baby. “How did I miss him?”  
“The girl has a stronger aura in the Force, but they’re both there, love. I missed him the first time too.” He smiled, then faltered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  
“Well, considering where we’re at now it doesn’t seem like much, but I was trying to keep you from oh, I don’t know…shooting a gigantic hole in our ship and giving yourself over to the First Order?” She grimaced. “I knew if you knew you’d come barreling in, and Snoke did too.”  
“And you were angry with me,” Kylo said quietly.  
“I was angry with you,” she agreed. “I didn’t realize until Crait how much you wanted all of that…to be the Supreme Leader, for me to go to the dark. And then when Finn told me what you’d done in the years he’d known you as Kylo Ren, it all became so clear that I felt like an idiot for believing in Ben Solo. You lied to me about a lot.”  
He didn’t deny it. He couldn’t. When he’d first wrenched her away from Luke that had been his plan. But it had spiraled into so much more…  
“And when I saw what Anakin’s death did to you, I knew I had an opportunity to get rid of you and find my own path.” Kylo flinched, like she’d actually hit him. It felt like it. “You were so devastated that I knew I could get you to go home. I didn’t want you to die, but I didn’t want you with me.” She turned her head. “But I wanted you to be safe.”  
“In case you didn’t notice, you almost killed me!” His anger surprised them both. He bit down, tasting blood. That feeling, the old anger, was so much easier for him than this.  
His love was mad now, eyes flashing. “I was trying to save you, your kriffing nerf herder! How was I to know you’d overreact—oh wait! Prince Ben didn’t get his way, why wouldn’t he pout?” She poked him hard in the chest.  
“Listen here, _Lady_ Rey, if you don’t shut your mouth—“  
“If you threaten me again, I will shove your lightsaber right up your—“  
“Excuse me!” The two double doors on the far side of the room flew open and a woman stepped through. She was older, but her body was sinewy and tough, like she spent a lot of time kicking people around. There was something about her red hair that was familiar.  
“Ben Solo Organa, if I hear you threaten a pregnant woman again I will toss you off the side of this balcony, no qualms. And you, Kira, sit down before you kriffing mess up what we managed to fix.” The woman glanced over her shoulder to speak to someone else. “The boy is an impulsive idiot like his father, and she’s just as hateful as Sheev was, you know?”  
“Aunt Mara?” Kylo was incredulous. Snoke had assumed for years Mara Jade had crawled off to die like her estranged husband. But here she was, sharp tongued as ever.  
“I thought you might recognize her delicate way with words,” Luke said, entering behind her. Kylo grabbed for Rey’s hand, and she punched him in the gut. He grunted.  
“Well,” Mara Jade said, looking around. “I guess I have some explaining to do.” She glanced up at the screen and then around at the three of them. “And so do you three.”


	16. The Lost Boy's Memory

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! *tries to pretend like I haven't been neglecting this forever*  
> Sorry for being gone! Viciously sick and possibly mourning over that Infinity War ending.  
> May the Force be with you!

Two things wrenched Poe from his deep sleep.  
One was the annoyed beeping of a med droid as he ripped some ancient rubber tubing out of his nostrils and dropped it onto the blankets. He never could stand having anything cover his face while he was sleeping, so it didn’t surprise him that he’d managed to work it off while unconscious.  
The second, much less pleasant thing that woke him as the raw burn of his throat. It felt like he had swallowed flames. Poe turned his face towards the med droid.  
“Water?” He hadn’t had much hope of his request being answered, but to his surprise the droid immediately presented him with a bottle of water. He drained the thing in a few long gulps, eyes roving over the room. The walls were some kind of strange wood, not metal, meaning they probably weren’t on a ship. He wasn’t restrained or hurt, apart from his throat. That would be courtesy of the gas bomb their abductor had dropped in the ruined hull of the First Order ship. Poe cast an appraising eye at the little droid.  
“I’m ah…going to take a walk. Is that okay?” The droid turned its head to the side, like it was sizing him up. Finally, it gave a beep of assent. “Great, thanks. So I’ll just being going…” The droid beeped and pointed towards a set of double doors with its short metal arm. “Right, thanks.” He was still wearing his flight suit, and it was unbearably hot. If the temperature was any indication, he was definitely on-planet somewhere and not going anywhere without his friends. He unzipped it and stepped out in his pants and undershirt, thankful for the immediate relief.  
The double doors opened onto a narrow walkway, which swayed slightly under his feet. He moved cautiously, peeking into different sets of double doors as he went along. Empty room. Lab. Kitchen…his stomach rumbled, but he continued on. Where was everyone? An uneasy thought worked its way into his head. Maybe everyone didn’t make it off the ship.  
He lost count of the number of doors he opened, but somewhere around the eighth tree—because these rooms were built into trees, he could see that now—he found what he’d been looking for. The lights were dark in here, but an overhead light illuminated the person in the bed below it. Poe stepped carefully across the floor to Finn’s bedside. He didn’t look like he was hurt, and they’d also stuck one of those stupid tubes in his nose. Poe reached to pull it out.  
“Please don’t touch that, sir.” Another med droid used what he assumed with the closest thing it had to a disapproving tone. “After inhalation of toxic gas, it’s important that the patient receive adequate oxygen flow to the brain.” The droid rapped its appendage on the tank beside Finn’s bed.  
“Sorry. We’re friends.”  
“Friends do not help. Rest and leaving my supplies where they are helps. Out!” The droid rammed itself into Poe’s legs painlessly. “Go on.” Before he knew what was happening, he’d been dumped back on the balcony.  
“Kriffing great,” he muttered. He’d just decided to go back to his room and hope that someone would explain what was going on soon, when a voice cut through the darkness.  
“You did _what?_ ” If that wasn’t enough, a slap sounded directly after. Poe picked up the pace, jogging to a set of doors a few trees down that were slightly open. He barreled into the room without stopping to analyze. It was something Leia always scolded him for.  
All action. No plan. She’d be furious when she found out what had happened with their little Rey rescue mission.  
The speaker (and assumed assailant) still had her hand drawn back when Poe stumbled in. She turned around to cast an annoyed look at Poe. To his shock, Luke Skywalker was seated in a chair beside her, ruefully palming his cheek.  
Poe cleared his throat. “Look, ma’am, commander, whatever you are, I can’t allow you to manhandle my crew like that.” To his consternation, Luke rolled his eyes.  
“Shut up and cut your losses, kid,” he mumbled.  
“ _Shut up_ being the operative words before you wake sleeping beauty and her beast,” the woman quipped, thrusting her chin towards the back of the room. Poe craned around her. There was another bed, exactly like his and Finn’s, only this one was surrounded by many more machines and several nervously circling med droids. Reluctant to turn his back to this strange and vaguely irritating woman, Poe edged along the wall until he could see the bed’s occupants.  
Looking frustratingly peaceful and whole, Kylo Ren was crammed into the tiny bed, his body folded around Rey, who definitely looked a little worse for wear. It was she who was connected to all of the machines, which seemed intent on beeping as much as possible. Poe frowned. He vaguely remembered Finn’s desperate radio call about Rey. He hadn’t been able to articulate what was wrong before they’d been boarded by…by…  
He turned and strode back to Luke and his mysterious company, extending a hand. “Commander Poe Dameron of the Resistance, serving under General Organa. Who the hell are you?”  
Luke shook his head and leaned back in the chair, but the woman studied him with interest. “Dameron…you’re Shara’s boy.” The corners of her mouth flicked upwards. “I didn’t know her well, of course, but she was one hell of a pilot. Leia always spoke highly of her. Gave the Empire quite a bit of trouble in their waning years.”  
Poe’s mouth went dry. The people who knew his family were few and far in between now. What were the chances of his captor knowing them? He found he couldn’t speak.  
The woman looked at Luke uncertainly. “Well…he is Shara’s boy, isn’t he?”  
“Yes.” The response came not from Luke, but in Kylo Ren’s deep baritone as he materialized behind them. Poe couldn’t help but notice that, for all the bored disinterest Ren was putting off, his head jerked back towards Rey every few seconds like he was afraid she’d evaporate. Maybe she would, and Ren would go with her. Poe had more than enough freaky Force shit going on around him, thank you very much. That would solve two big problems nicely.  
“Ah yes, you two were friends, weren’t you?” Another long silence filled the room as Ben and Poe stared determinedly away from each other. The woman rolled her eyes.  
“Poe, this is my wife, Mara Jade.” Luke said this in an offhand way, like he was commenting on the weather. _Poe, it’s hot in here._ Whatever he’d been expecting, it wasn’t this. Poe was pretty sure he could hear his jaw crack as his mouth fell open.  
Mara Jade laughed, tossing back her short red hair. “That’s a title I haven’t heard in quite some time.” She extended her hand to grasp Poe’s in a firm grip. “Mara Jade, recluse, Force sensitive, ex-Empire slave, and yes, formerly Mrs. Luke Skywalker.” Poe noticed Luke open his mouth to argue, then resolutely shut it again, looking bad tempered. “You interrupted us just as I was trying to understand what in all the stars would compel my dear husband here to attempt to murder our nephew.”  
Skywalker sprang back to life in an instant. “If you could have seen the darkness that was lurking in that boys head…you didn’t see what I saw, feel what I felt—“  
“I was asleep,” Kylo hissed. His faced darkened automatically. “A child asleep in his bed and you tried to kill me! What was I supposed to do, roll over and pretend like it hadn’t happened?”  
“Well, that or maybe you could have listened to me before pulling the roof down on my head—“  
“Once again, you were going to kill me, you were scared of me, still are, as a matter of fact—“  
“Hey now,” Poe said, stepping between the two men.  
Luke was red faced. “Worried, yes, considering you slaughtered your own friends that night—“  
“YOU let it happen, you couldn’t get over Aunt Mara leaving you long enough to be a master, you’re a coward!” Kylo bellowed this last word, edging around Poe. In an instant, both men were drawing their weapons. There was a blinding flash of green and white light—  
“That’s ENOUGH!” Mara Jade stood between the two men, arms extended to either side. She wasn’t just Force sensitive, but strong with it too. She’d frozen Luke and Kylo where they stood. “Now listen to me.” Poe wasn’t even the subject of her ire, but found that he was shrinking into the wall.  
“You, Ben Organa, have done terrible things, and you’ll have to answer for that one day, whether you like it or not. Believe me.” A shudder went through her. “Considering the responsibilities you now have, you might want to exert your energies there. I had enough of that temper when you lived with us.”  
Ren continued looking mutinous until Rey called softly from the bed. “Ben?” The sound of her voice made him hang his head, cheeks reddening.  
Mara turned her attention to Luke. “And you, Wonder Boy. He’s right, you know. You went off after that crystal, and were never the same after it. Scared of your legacy and your own shadow...” She clapped her hands together like that settled that, and both men staggered as she released her hold on them.  
Luke looked like he was on the verge of tears. “There was darkness in him, Mara.”  
“Of course there was! There’s darkness in you, even now. Stars above, what did you see in me? How many nights did you hover over my bed with your lightsaber?” More silence. Poe wished fervently that he had stayed in bed.  
“That’s what I thought.” Mara turned her back to Luke and directed her attentions to Poe. “Get some more sleep, Commander Dameron. We’ll discuss our prisoners and getting a message to Leia tomorrow.”  
“D-discuss our…who do you have on this planet?!”  
Mara looked confused by his reaction. “Some scummy chap that never shuts up, a stoic Chiss (that’s like the anti-oxymoron, ha), and a really, really angry redhead that proclaims himself to be Grand Admiral Hux of the First Order.”  
Poe cursed under his breath, and Kylo recovered enough to voice his thoughts.  
“No offense, Aunt Mara, but you’d have been better off leaving him to die in space.” Poe heard the undisguised dislike in Kylo’s voice and almost smiled. Ben hadn’t dealt well with Type-As when they were children, and everything Poe knew about Hux fit that bill.  
“He’s right. They’ll come for him,” Poe said. “We’ve got to get rid of him.”  
Mara smiled. “They’re not going to find him out here, Commander. Believe me.”  
Poe turned in a small circle and Luke voiced his own question.  
“Where are we?”  
“Unknown regions,” Kylo grunted. They all three turned to look at him.  
“How…did you know,” Mara asked.  
They’d all been so involved in the conversation at hand that Rey had joined the group, unnoticed. A med droid rolled in her wake, beeping shrilly. She looked tired, but her eyes were sharp as she met Kylo’s in a silent conversation.  
“We’ve seen this place,” she said. “This was Snoke’s home world.”  
Mara Jade turned her flashing eyes on Kylo. “How do you know that, Ben?”  
**********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************  
Kylo Ren fell hard, smacking his knees against the polished floor. Even though this was the third time in a row, he barely felt the sharp ache in his kneecaps before bracing himself for the next hit. Snoke’s Force lightning struck him so hard he was knocked onto his back. His teeth clanged together…he tasted blood. He rolled over, coughing.  
“Idiot. You’re weak.” Snoke’s tone grew softer and more dangerous. He’d gotten up from his chair to stand over Kylo’s prone form. His master wrapped his gnarled fingers in Kylo’s hair and jerked him back to his knees. “You could do this if you’d quit pitying it!”  
_It_ was an unlucky boy, only a few years older than Kylo, who was struggling against the restraints that bound him to a freestanding interrogation table. All Snoke wanted him to do was break into the boy’s thoughts, compel him to show him everything, and Kylo couldn’t do it. Their captive’s eyes were wide was pain and fear, but there was something else there too. Disgust. Kylo disgusted him.  
Snoke hit him across the face, releasing his hair.  
“Maybe if you can’t do this, you sniveling disappointment, I’ll have one of your fellows give it a try on you. There must be one of you who isn’t completely useless.”  
“I’m not useless,” Kylo spat through gritted teeth, only just remembering to tack on “master” at the end.  
Snoke threw himself back into his seat. “Then prove it, Solo.” His father’s name boiled like poison in his gut and made Kylo force himself to his feet. The prisoner stared at him with open hatred. Kylo raised his arm, trying to prevent his outstretched hand from shaking. How long had they been doing this? An hour? Two? The boy noticed his weakness and laughed at Kylo’s trembling arm. Furious, he reached out with the Force, and the darkness finally answered him.  
After broaching the barrier of the prisoner’s mind, it was nothing to knock through the boy’s weak defenses. Kylo could almost picture the weak mental blockade crumbling like dust around him. He saw flashes of color, light, sound, that developed into memories. A woman’s smiling face, laugh lines around her eyes—fire, a screaming man—his own face, glowering down at him. The emotions were even stronger. Fear. Pride. Rage. Something else that made him recoil. Love. This boy had loved someone, something at one point. The darkness didn’t like it, tried to push past it—  
“Stop.” The thoughts that were not his own faded into nothing. He could feel the pressure of Snoke’s hand on his shoulder. Sweat trickled down his temple. “You’ve done it. Stop.”  
Kylo struggled to focus his eyes on the prisoner in front of him. The boy no longer struggled. His head hung limply against his chest. Snoke lifted the prisoner’s chin. The boy’s staring eyes were empty and his glassy expression held no emotion. A thin stream of blood ran from his nose.  
“I killed him?”  
“Yes. A little over-enthusiastic, although that shouldn’t surprise me with you.” Snoke dropped the boy’s head carelessly, where it plunked back to his chest. Kylo felt a little sick, but also—relieved. The boy wouldn’t ever look at him with scorn again. He followed Snoke back to his seat, knowing his master didn’t like to be kept standing too long. Some old, never-healed injury kept him in constant pain, but Kylo was one of the few who knew that.  
He dropped to his knees in front of his master, sending a fresh wave of pain down his legs. He was going to be bruised for a week this time, he was sure of it. Snoke cupped Kylo’s chin in his hand, turning his face upwards.  
“You know how much I care for you, Kylo. More than Ben Solo’s parents, who never had time for him. More than your friends, who feared you.” He chuckled. “And, I assume, more than the droids that raised you.” Kylo glared at Snoke, who was still quietly laughing at him. “You are my son, Kylo Ren. So tell me why you are always making me do this? Can’t you perform a simple task without disappointing me first?”  
“I do as I’m bid, to the best of my ability, which is gaged by your training.” Snoke didn’t miss the hidden insult, and Force pushed Kylo away from him before entering his mind. Ancient, with skills that far surpassed his own, it cost Snoke nothing at all to enter his mind and tear it apart.  
_Lost boy_ , Snoke’s voice echoed in his head. _Proud, angry boy incapable of bringing our enemies to justice. When your equal rises in the light, it will be a miracle if you survive, particularly if they ever realize the weakness of the tender heart you try so hard to hide._ Snoke dove even deeper into his most private thoughts and scoffed. _Lost boy, still crying at night over the mother that never loved him._ “Get OUT,” Kylo screamed. He reached out, trying to find some semblance of protection, and found himself swimming in more thoughts that weren’t his own. He saw a lush forest, weird, brightly colored trees, felt heat. Two faceless parents, a giggling child. Kylo pushed harder. Now there was fear, pain, a presence strong with the Force, a humanoid alien screaming at his own twisted reflection in a broken mirror—  
“Stop!” Crackling energy burst from Snoke’s hands again, lifting Kylo off the ground. He dropped Kylo with enough force to crack the floor around him where he hit.  
“You ungrateful brat.” Kylo blinked, dazed. Had he really managed to break through his master’s defenses? “You’re lucky I don’t kill you here and leave your corpse to rot.” Fear pooled in his stomach. “But.” Snoke crouched next to him, breathing heavily. “That was impressive, nonetheless. You might actually be capable of what I need you to do.” He stood and used the Force to lift Kylo up behind him. His toes barely touched the floor.  
His master didn’t look at him, apparently lost in thought. He finally lifted a comm unit to his twisted mouth. “I need disposal and a medic to corridor…” Kylo lost track of Snoke’s words, his head listing onto his shoulder. Some indeterminate amount of time later, the doors to Snoke’s chambers slid open. Several stormtroopers began to wheel the dead prisoner away. Medics hesitantly put their hands on Kylo. Snoke relinquished his hold, and let them lower Kylo onto a stretcher.  
“Supreme Leader,” the chief medic whispered, head bowed.  
“Send updates. I daresay he’ll be fine after a night or so.” Something livid touched Snoke’s expression. Kylo shut his eyes.  
“Yes, sir.” The medic signaled to her underlings, who took Kylo away. It was only later, as he lay brooding in the medbay, that Kylo began to piece together what he had seen.  
Snoke’s childhood. Family. And then whoever, whatever, had turned him into the monster that now haunted Kylo.  
_Monster._  
Kylo used the Force to knock the attending medic unconscious.  
The Lost Boy wept.


	17. The Weight of a Name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've moved in, set up my office, and re-established internet connection. Aaaaand we're back!  
> May the Force be with you, always.

Hux cursed and kicked the wall of his cell, incensed. He’d been trapped in this hell hole for at least three days, in whatever had passed for holding on this stars-forsaken planet. His Admiral whites were now stained and muddy, and he used the edge of the cloak to mop his face. He couldn’t stand mess, disorder, and uncertainty, and this was all three.   
“You wanna try to c-c-calm yourself there, cap’n?” The disgusting smuggler was lying in the corner on his back with his filthy feet pressed against the wall. Every few seconds he’d knock his heels against the stone, irritating Hux even more.   
“No, I will not calm myself,” he hissed. “We were double-crossed and taken for fools by the girl. No doubt she’s joined up with Ren by now, and we’ll be the ones that have to take the fall for it.”  
“Not me. It was just a job.” DJ searched in one of his many pockets before producing a deathstick and striking it hard against the wall. Hux tried to pretend that he didn’t desperately want a drag.  
“Just a job, I’m sure. You do a lot of switching sides for someone who claims to have no stake in either. Why not look the other way and take your business elsewhere?” Hux wrinkled his nose. “No one would miss you.”  
“Because this is where the money is. And excitement. Because for some reason, your species cannot get enough of wealth.” The Chiss shifted in his stiff position on the bench in the cell.   
“Well we can’t all get our kicks from drinking blood or whatever it is you do.” The Chiss’s red eyes flashed dangerously in DJ’s direction.  
“I do not drink blood—“  
“Are you sure about that, LeHuse?” All three of them turned towards the new voice, squinting in the light that streamed from the hall. The Chiss was up and on his feet in an instant, skidding to a halt in front of the door.  
“Ren?” Hux watched in disgust as the Chiss reached through the window bars and grabbed Ren’s forearm where he rested it on the sill. The two of them tilted their heads towards each other, talking in low voices. Whatever Ren was saying, it wasn’t to LeHuse’s taste, Hux could tell. Finally, they seemed to come to an agreement and LeHuse released Kylo’s arm.  
There was a moment’s pause and then the door slid open, illuminating Kylo Ren’s tall figure. LeHuse gathered himself and began to follow Ren out of the cell.   
“Wait! You’ve got to be kidding. Where are they taking you?” This unfairness seemed to be enough to rankle the hacker’s nerves as well.  
“Yeah, n-not cool, man. You’re not going to help me out?”  
“Help you?” Ren’s voice was quiet, malice twisting each word. “Of course I’ll help you.” Hux had spent enough time in the enforcer’s company to know to take a step back, but the idiot hacker apparently had no sense of self-preservation. Ren’s magical push made the man’s head collide hard with the wall of the cell before lifting him, still dazed, into the air. With a great feeling of uneasiness, Hux realized that no one was holding the madman’s leash anymore.   
“Kylo,” said LeHuse, betraying intimacy Hux had never known Ren to have. “These people will not be okay with you killing him unprovoked.”  
Ren barely shrugged. “I was provoked. He tried to kill my…” Ren’s voice trailed away and Hux let out of bark of laughter he’d been holding back.  
“Your what, Ren?” He clapped his hands together, expelling a little cloud of dirt. “Oh, you’re such an idiot, the girl doesn’t want to be your anything. Do you know what she was planning, while you were mooning over her?”  
“Admiral.” Rey slipped in behind Kylo, looking impressively at home in some sort of beige wrap dress. Once a desert rat, always one, Hux thought. “It’s good to see you, but I think it’s fair to say you’ve been demoted, yes?” Now the unseen Force pressed onto him, imperiously bringing him to his knees at her feet. Instead of looming over him, Rey squatted down beside him. “Looks like you’re just one of the common folk now. Friend of scavengers and hackers.” She smiled.  
“Unlike Ren, I don’t lower myself to rolling with scumrats.”  
“You might find that you want our help soon enough.” Rey shrugged, as if Hux were no problem to her. Then, with a sharp look over her shoulder:  
“Ben. Put the nice man down.” The hacker’s face had started to purple, and a small trickle of blood dripped onto his collar from Ren’s earlier attack. With a look Hux knew well—one foot stomp shy of a tantrum—Ren flicked his fingers peevishly and released the man.   
“If that’s what you want.”  
The girl rolled her eyes with feeling and then addressed Hux. “LeHuse is coming with us because he’s not as high risk as you are.”   
“Is that the real reason?” Hux smirked, a warning, and he could tell that Rey took it as such.  
“Ben, can I have a minute, please?”   
Ren snorted. “No.”  
“I was only asking to be nice.” Rey pointed to the door. “Out.” With another doleful look, Ren left with LeHuse, pausing only to glare at Hux on his way out. The hacker didn’t move on the floor, but his chest continued to rise and fall slowly.   
“I just need one reason, Hux.” The cell door slid shut with finality, Ren’s warning lingering in the air.  
Rey sat cross legged in the straw, shaking her head back and forth.   
“Something wrong?” he asked, bored and disinterested. He slumped glumly on the bench, resigned to staying here with the unconscious hacker another day.  
To his surprise, she answered him. “No. He quiets most everything else around me, but his mind is loud, especially with—“  
“With the baby, yes.” He shot a disgusted look at her abdomen, which seemed to be bigger than ever. “I really don’t care about the next generation of madness you’re working on.”  
“There’s two.” Hux worked to keep his expression calm and in check as she continued. “Snoke knew that, but he didn’t tell me. Why?”  
Why? His brain ticked over the possible reasons, then moved on to ways to work this in his favor. “I don’t know.”  
She recrossed her legs. “You don’t believe in using a clone army, right? Tell me why.”   
He considered not answering, but there was nothing to be gained from it. “Because clones…they are all derived from a singular person. Any flaw, any defect….your entire army will have it.” Talking about this made him feel like his old self and he continued. “You’re constrained by the physicality of one man. But with an army of all sorts, you get different body types and strengths and intelligence levels.”  
“What if someone doesn’t fit?” Stars, the girl’s eyes were ancient. It made him want to cover his face.  
“There is no ‘not fitting’. You retrain and regroup and force them to become what you want. Those types tend to be a little more…fragile,” he said delicately, with a pointed glance towards the door. He studied her troubled expression. “One of your children is weaker than the other. You sense it, even now.”  
He took her silence for confirmation.   
“I wouldn’t worry.” She looked up at him in confusion. “I have no doubt that Snoke wants your children, but don’t discount the weaker one yet. Being a runt makes you have to fight harder.” Hux pulled down his collar to reveal a thin white scar that started behind his ear and traveled down his neck, right over the jugular vein. “My father once called me thin as a slip of paper and twice as useless. He mistook me for blood when he should have seen an adversary.” He smirked. “I believe Han Solo made the same mistake with your beloved _Ben_.”  
“You don’t get to talk about that,” Rey breathed.   
“Why not? Patricide is all the rage. Ren might want to take that into account before proceeding with this lovesick venture.”  
The girl pushed herself to her feet, staggering a little. “We’re done here.”  
“Don’t be rash, scavenger. Of course I’ll take one off your hands when the time comes.”  
“That was a deal made in desperation. You will never touch my children now.” Her hands settled protectively around her stomach. “We don’t need you.”  
“You say that now, but Snoke hasn’t yet beat down your door. All that mystical strength will attract his attention, but for one that is weak…it could stay hidden.” Hux shrugged. “But have it your way. Leave me here to rot and play house with the resistance. It will all end soon enough.”  
“You don’t know that.” She made for the door. “I’ll see what I can do about moving you somewhere else. There’s some things here you might find interesting.”   
“That’s all fine,” Hux nodded. “And Rey, darling?”   
“What?” Her tone was sharp and wary.   
“Somewhere in Ren’s personal records—if you still have access to those here—he once requested a series of books from a religion even more ancient than yours. I think there’s a story in there you might find interesting. He certainly did.”  
“And why would I care about that?” She dropped her nonchalance. “What would I be looking for?”  
Hux smiled nastily. “Just search for Cain and Abel.”  
Later that night, Ben wrapped his arms around Rey, letting his large hands float over her stomach. They were standing on the balcony outside their rooms, watching the planet’s odd reptiles drop from one tree to the next. She caught his wrist and pressed his hand flat against her belly.   
“Do you feel it?”  
“It?” She turned her face up to him and smiled gleefully. He grinned weakly back, confused, and then he felt _it_. “Oh!”   
Rey winced and curved towards her left side. “Oof. I think one of them has your temper and my bad aim.”  
Ben placed his hand comfortingly on her side. “A walking disaster in the making. That would be your daughter.”  
“ _Your_ daughter.” Rey jabbed him in the ribs, staying away from the indentation of the old blaster wound. She hesitated and then went for it. “Have you thought of a name?”  
“ _A_ name? I don’t get to do both?” Ben pressed his lips to the top of her hair as she bristled with indignation.   
“No, you do not get to name both!” She stuck her fingers in the wide loop of her belt. “I like Jacen.”  
“Jacen?” Ben was taken aback, so certain that she’d want to name the girl. But something about the name felt right, like the baby enjoyed the sound. “Yeah.”  
“Nothing from you?”   
“Jaina.” It came so easily, so naturally, that it was strange.   
Rey pressed her lips together. “Jacen and Jaina Solo.” She nodded. “I like it.” Their bond thrummed with rarely shared happiness and Ben pulled her a little closer.   
“Rey…”  
“Hey!” The both jumped and broke apart. Poe was leaning over the edge of the adjoining balcony, looking vaguely sick at the sight of them together. “Finn’s up, he’s asking for you. Come inside, both of you. Mara Jade wants to talk. I think it’s important.”   
“Oh, thank the Maker.” Rey pressed Ben’s knuckles to her lips. “To be continued, alright?” She scrambled across the thin rope bridge to the next balcony and took off, dropping her comlink in her hurry. Ben picked it up, not wanting to call her back when she was so excited. He flipped it over to put it in his pocket when the screen lit up. He brought it to his eyelevel, squinting at the tiny request she had made two hours ago. These were his files, and the names familiar.   
There was only one other person who would have known that he had ever looked at this. Fuming, Kylo strode towards the elevator and mashed the button in to head to the lower level. When the doors spat him out at his destination, the newly fallen Admiral was already sitting up and waiting for him with a smile.  
“That took longer than I expected.”   
“I am going to murder you.”  
Hux tsked in a bemused sort of way.  
“Careful, Ren.”


	18. Sheev's Mistake

“Finn!” Rey flung herself into her friend’s arms, so happy to see him that she felt like she might burst. There was a confusing tangle of wires to fight through, but Finn hugged her back tightly. Poe chuckled and tapped on his shoulder.  
“Take it easy. Believe it or not, you’re not the most fragile one here.” Rey rolled her eyes and let go of Finn, sliding back to her feet.   
“That could be debated.” She paused. “How much do you remember?”  
Finn chewed his lip. “We set up a deal to exchange Ren for DJ, but it was really a plan to get Hux and intercept you. We were going to critically damage the First Order envoy, then rescue who we needed. But right before we fired, Ren realized you were onboard and panicked. The cannon hit in the wrong place, and we were afraid we’d lost you. But I found you, but you were hurt and…and…” He shook his head. “I don’t remember anything else.”  
“I’m fine. We were rescued,” Rey squeezed his hand.  
“Psht.” Poe rolled his eyes. “If you can call it that.”  
“What do you mean? Are we in custody somewhere?” Finn looked around the room wearily.   
“We got boarded during the attack.”  
“Who? How?”  
“Mara Jade Skywalker. Luke’s…wife?” Poe raised his eyebrows at Rey, who shrugged.  
“Your guess is as good as mine.” It was obvious that there wasn’t much warmth between Luke and Mara, and Rey knew a part of that was because of her. Despite the answers she might have, Rey had been actively avoiding Mara Jade for that reason.  
“Well where’s she been this whole time,” Finn asked, confused. “Seems like that’s someone we could have used a year ago.”  
“My point exactly,” Poe muttered, looking tense. He released Finn’s forearm. “Rey, can I talk to you outside for a minute?”  
She blinked. “But Finn…”  
“I’m okay, Rey, go ahead. But if one of you comes back with food, I’ll be forever in your debt.” Finn looked over the side of the bed and called out to the med droid. “Hey, you!” Rey followed Poe out of the doors and onto the balcony, feeling a sense of trepidation.  
“I don’t like you, Rey,” Poe said baldly. “I don’t like you, and I’m not big on Skywalker, and I sure as hell don’t trust Kylo Ren.”   
Rey frowned. “But here you are.”  
“But here I am,” Poe repeated. “For General Organa. For Finn.” He paused. “But not for you. And certainly not for Ren.” Starlight fell through the trees, casting weird shadows on Poe’s face. She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation, here, on this beautiful planet when they had all nearly died.  
“You have to understand something, Poe.”   
“All I understand is that you left us to bring back Skywalker, and ended up with Kylo Ren. That should have told us all we needed to know from the beginning, but everyone was so hell bent on Ben coming home. They believed in you.”  
“Didn’t I get him to you?”  
Poe snarled. “He was in no condition to help us when he got here, you nearly killed him.” Rey flinched, but Poe plowed on with his speech. “Meanwhile, I find out that you’ve been gallivanting to Mustafar on Snoke’s dime.” Her jaw dropped and Poe smiled. “Yeah, I know about that. Once he mentioned it in his surrender terms, I had to figure out what it was that was so important that you couldn’t read.”  
Rey froze. Her plan was going to slip through her fingers. Every terrible moment with Snoke and the Order, the lies she had told, and all the false plans would come to nothing if Poe exposed her.  
“I don’t want it for the reasons you think.”  
“Then why not tell Skywalker?” Poe crossed his arms.  
“Because he would stop me,” she said simply. “Luke may be powerful, but he’s frightened of some of the darker facets of the Force.” She shuddered. “Actually, so am I. But I’m afraid to let Ben too near it, because…”  
Poe stared at her intently. “Because of Anakin. The ability to create life. You think he would…” He looked as sick as she felt. “Damn it all.”  
“This isn’t magic,” Rey added. “There’s no bringing people back from the dead.”  
“Isn’t there?” Poe pushed himself away from the balcony’s wooden railing and rocked back on his heels. “Leia told me a little bit about Force communing. And stars know I saw Ben talking to enough imaginary friends growing up—“  
“You knew each other?” This was news to Rey. Poe looked embarrassed and angry.  
“I thought we did.” He shoved his hands roughly into his pockets. “It doesn’t matter now. The question is, and remains, how do we defeat Snoke? Now that you’ve unearthed this…book.”   
“I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “He’s clearly got some weakness, or he wouldn’t be so interested in the work of Darth Plagueis. But if it’s there, I haven’t felt it. Neither has Ben.” But that wasn’t true, she thought. They both had seen a flickering, a glimmer, of Snoke’s past. Something terrible had happened here, on this very planet, that left a bigger monster in its wake. But what?  
Poe was still waiting. “I need more time,” she finished. “Let me figure out how to read it.”  
“How do you plan to do that without Skywalker? Ren?”  
“No.” The answer came naturally. “I need to talk with—“  
“Ghosts,” Poe finished for her. “Whatever. I’m going to contact General Organa, let her know what’s going on. If I can get someone to let me. I’ll tell Mara Jade we’ll meet later.” He stopped at the doors. “I want to believe in you, Rey. But you have to understand, there was a time when everyone believed in Ben Solo, and Luke Skywalker, too.”  
“I’m not them,” she replied, feeling the weight of that statement.  
“No, you’re not.”   
His tone left her wondering if that was an insult or a compliment.   
*******************************************************************************************  
Something was troubling Rey. Kylo could feel it trickling down the bond, distracting him from his own anger. He reached out, searching, only to find that she had once again firmly shut the door to her mind. He bit down on the inside of his cheek and fought to contain his feelings of ill use. It was beyond maddening to want to know everything about her, and then be relegated to bits and pieces.   
“Are you so in love that you cannot stay focused?” Hux blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling and rolled his eyes. “Weak men fall prey to that sort of thing.” The smoke disappeared into the vent that was firmly indented into the cell’s ceiling. Kylo brought himself back to their conversation with difficulty, his soul still wanting to comfort Rey’s.  
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. What woman would have you, knowing that you bring death down on all of them? Your mother, Phasma, Rae Sloane—“  
There was a crack in Hux’s icy veneer. “Don’t talk about Rae.”  
Kylo had known that that name, above all the others, would be the one to nettle Hux. The stupid man had revealed far too much to Kylo Ren before learning how to protect himself.   
“Tell me, is she the real reason why you killed your father? She was murdered, right? Died the same rank you are now.” For a second, Hux met his eyes, and Kylo could see Sloane’s body on the floor, feel younger Hux’s rage and sadness…  
“Are you done?” Hux was still upright but he had a hand on his temple. “Torturing me will not get you what you want.”  
“What do I want, Hux?” He parted his lips, hungry to cause the man in front of him more harm. They loathed each other, always had, and it had only increased over the years.  
“The same thing I want.” Hux took in Kylo’s disbelieving glare and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure your ideal scenario includes me dead, and your lady by your side, but let’s be honest. Neither of us want the First Order to fall.”  
A moment, a heartbeat. Hux took that for his assent.   
“Think about it, Ren. We have both put our lives into the Order, everything we’ve done has been to create a better world, a better galaxy—“  
“A better empire,” Kylo finished, almost inaudibly.  
Hux was still. “So you have been thinking about it.”  
Of course he had thought about it. There was so much here that he could never recover from. His brief stint with the Resistance on Canto Bight had taught him that. The fissure that would never be repaired between his mother and himself, the mistrust of everyone, and the ever-present anger towards his uncle. All he wanted to do was divorce his very being from the past, to create something new and better for those who would come after. If it weren’t for Rey…  
If it weren’t for Rey.   
“It’s not possible. It doesn’t matter.”  
“Without Snoke, it could be.” Hux leaned forward, his now-ruddy white sleeves pressed flush against the table. “Think about it, Ren. The Resistance will become another Republic, a blight on the galaxy with their leniency. Rae should have been our leader, before Snoke arrived. She would have shown us how things could be. Now maybe you’re the one.”  
“I’m not.”  
“Please, don’t insult my intelligence.” Kylo scoffed and Hux ignored it. “You come from royalty, Solo. No one would challenge you power in the Force.”  
“Where do you fit in? You surely can’t think that the Resistance is just going to let you walk.”  
“But we’re not with the Resistance, are we?” Hux smiled. “No, we’re in neutral territory. And if you think Snoke isn’t aware of that, you’re wrong. I’m surprised he hasn’t moved on us yet. Unless…” He took another drag on his death stick. “Unless he senses what I do from you. That you’re not done.”  
“You don’t know me like you think you do.”  
“Of course. You’re shrouded in a complexity that I’ll never understand.” The admiral rolled his eyes again. “You haven’t asked me why I tipped the girl off on your studies.”  
“I thought it was obvious. You want her to think that I’m deranged.”  
Hux laughed, and the unnatural sound echoed around the cell so much that Kylo had to check to make sure the hacker was still unconscious.   
“You idiot. That wasn’t my intention at all. I thought you both could bond over your fascination with creating life.” He let the last two words hang delicately.   
“Those children are mine,” Kylo said, fury stirring in his gut. The Force called out to him, curling itself seductively around his core.  
“Of course they are,” Hux said smoothly, a clear attempt to placate him. “But your wife’s origin seems strange. She just showed up at your Uncle’s training temple? But Palpatine was never said to have a lover.” He stubbed out his death stick. “Odd.”  
Kylo curled his fingers into a fist. “It doesn’t matter, Force born or not.”  
“But your grandfather was Force born, no? He wasn’t exactly known for his mental stability. I wonder what that means for your beloved? Is there a vein of madness there, Kylo?”  
“No.” _Yes._ He had seen it in flashes, when she’d bled her kyber crystals with him, while she was fighting, even now the darkness…simmered.   
“You’re delusional. I’ve seen it myself. But no matter.” Hux rolled up his dingy sleeve, revealing a tracking bracelet affixed around his bicep. Kylo stared at the blinking beacon with mute horror. Hux smiled.  
“The Order is on the move, Ren. And your master wants you back. The question is—are you going to come quietly, or at the expense of these people?” He paused. “Are they worth dying for?” Above them, the building rattled.   
“Better decide quickly.”  
***************************************************************************************  
Rey didn’t hear the first Fighters arrive. She was tucked away in an empty room, kneeling with her arms around her stomach. She called to her grandfather, but he was not the one who answered.  
“Rey.” The voice was kind, with an accent that seemed both familiar and foreign. Whoever it was did not manifest for her.   
“Yes?” She felt a sense of trepidation, rather like she had the first time she’d reached out to Darth Vader. But while that experience had been terrifying, this one felt different. Steady.  
“There’s so much more to learn, young one. Don’t let yourself be consumed by what you seek.”  
This made her tilt her head, thinking hard. “But my power…”  
“There are those strong with the Force born every day. You are not defined by what once was.” A pause. "You have no idea how important that is."  
Suddenly, it occurred to her where she had first heard this voice, in Maz’s castle on Takodana.   
_Rey, these are your first steps._  
Almost instantaneously, she could feel this person slipping away.  
“Wait,” she pleaded.  
Boom. The earth rattled around her, shaking her from her commune.   
“Kriff.” She caught herself on a table, heaving to her feet. She’d barely reached for her weapon when another rumbling explosion shook the floor. Panicked, she kicked the door open and began to run with no real sense of purpose. Where should she go? Someone shouted. She headed in that direction.  
Stormtroopers were pouring in to the compound, specialty squads, with dark armor and a deadly array of weapons. Suddenly aware of her horrible vulnerability, Rey backed up the corridor and slipped onto an adjacent balcony. It was worse than she had feared; Snoke’s flagship loomed over them, having fully come to rest above the planet’s surface.   
She had to find Ben.   
Another shriek led her to an outside balcony, which was in utter chaos. Smoke was hot and thick, and rubble crunched beneath her feet. She arrived just in time to see Mara Jade flip a trooper over the railing, sending him sprawling to the forest floor below. When the older woman turned to find Rey standing there, she was furious.  
“What are you doing here? Run, go!”   
Content that Mara was holding her own, she spun on her heel, not really sure where she was going to. She reached for Ben across their bond, but was blocked again and again. Damn!  
Her scream was muffled as someone grabbed her and pulled her into one of the smaller rooms, a hand smashed over her teeth. To her momentary relief, it was Ben.   
“Stars, Ben, you scared me. We have to help the others…Ben?” Her eyes had adjusted to the room’s dimness enough to see Hux standing to the side of the balcony window. The admiral surveyed her coldly.  
“We are leaving here together. You are not going to fight or scream, and we are going to protect each other when we return to Snoke.”  
Rey turned to Ben incredulously. “You can’t be serious.” Ben’s eyes remained trained somewhere at her feet. Ben, look at me!”  
He did. And when he turned those ancient eyes on her, she could tell that this decision had been made for a long, long time. Even with her children—their children—on the line.  
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He tapped on her consciousness with his mind, and all the tension went out of her body. He caught her, and gathered her up in his arms like he’d done the first time they’d crossed paths. Her head rested against his shoulder.  
Hux watched silently from the corner. “Are you ready?”  
He nodded. “Call the ship.”  
******************************************************************  
Rey dreamed.   
When she was a little girl on Jakku, her dreams had been bland, filled with the neutral tones of her desert and the mundane faces that she saw every day. As she grew older, they evolved into a different world, colors and scenes she had never seen before, the same pair of haunted dark eyes in her visions. And still, as strange as it all was, there was a familiarity about the places she went. It was like a friend was showing her holos of a life they’d both forgotten.   
But nothing was quite like this.   
Everything was so vivid. She could feel the weight of the weapon in her hand, and the silence was so complete as to be deafening. Very carefully, she stepped into a darkened room. There was a figure lying on a bed, obviously asleep. The person’s chest rose and fell with a steady rhythm. The Force hummed, sensing the life that flowed between her and this other person. But it was not a comforting connection. Indeed, as soon as she registered this person’s breaths, a dread overtook her so completely that she almost screamed. If the sleeping person awoke, she would be ruined. It would be over. With this thought she stepped forward and raised her weapon. Her heavy robe brushed the ground behind her.  
Her hand fell, and the weapon found its mark. The sleeping victim didn’t scream, but awoke with a surprised, choking sound. Confusion proceeded the pain, and for a second, the person smiled at her. Hatefully, she turned her wrist, twisting the weapon deeper. The person’s face melted into shock. Blood splattered over both of them.  
“What have you done?” The person’s last words where garbled, coated with the same blood that had splashed the right side of her face. She looked away from her victim, slightly ashamed, catching sight of her reflection in a mirror. But it wasn’t her.   
“Grandfather?” She raised a hand uncertainly, and Sheev Palpatine did the same. Her grinned at her, blood speckling the right side of his face. Seized with the sudden realization of what she must be witnessing, she glanced back down at her victim. Finally, she would see the famous Darth Plagueis.  
But it wasn’t Plagueis. Ben, her Ben, was choking in a pool of blood, his body skewered at the end of the weapon in her had. When she glanced back at the mirror, Sheev was gone. It was her. Just her. She began to scream.  
“The thing Palpatine forgot, Rey, was to make sure I was actually dead.” Snoke’s voice twisted painfully through her thoughts before closing his hand around her throat and pulling her back to reality.  
Which was, if anything, an even greater nightmare.


End file.
